"Funny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Booth died, the wife of the famous "General," the "Army" reported her as "Promoted to Glory from Clacton-on-Sea." It was extremely funny. Clacton-on-Sea is such a prosaic anti-climax after Glory. One was reminded ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... all about," said Sophy. "I know it's very amusing. What was that funny thing he said last?" she asked as the shrieks ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... How strange, funny, and disgraceful that nearly all (Faraday and Sir J. Herschel at least exceptions) our great men are in quarrels in couplets; ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... kindness consistent with the due execution of their duty, allowed Mr. Bradlaugh and myself to walk on in front, and they followed us across the roar of Fleet Street, down past Ludgate Hill Station, to the Police Office. Here we passed into a fair-sized room, and were requested to go into a funny iron-barred place; it was a large oval railed in, with a brightly polished iron bar running round it, the door closing with a snap. Here we stood while two officers in uniform got out their books; one of these reminded Mr. Bradlaugh of his late visits there, remarking that he supposed the 'gentleman ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... the keenest interest and unbounded surprise. One very well-meaning person put down his knife and fork and said he was too surprised to eat any more breakfast; whereupon Hugh said, "You needn't be so very funny, because Sara doesn't ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... in, has arisen the Fund, by which poor but honest men can join, and do join, with never a thought of ways and means. Of these Herbert Horning, possibly the best-liked man in the club, who supported a large family off the funny department of a magazine, was one. He had spurned the suggestion when it was first made to him, and had reluctantly foregone his election; whereon Peter Maginnis had taken him aside, a dash of red in his ordinarily ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... everything dismal in unison with itself. A wet wedding is like a wet pic-nic. The most heroic nature gives way before its utter desolation; the wit of the party forgets his best anecdote; the funny man breaks down in the climactic verse of his great buffo song; there is no brightness in the eyes of the beauty; there is neither sparkle nor flavour in the champagne, though the grapes thereof have been grown in the vineyards of ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... my intention to arrive at the Garden to-morrow, and I hope, as your dear wife's half-sister, to get a hearty welcome. I have a great scheme in my head, which I am certain you will approve of, and which will be exceedingly good for your funny little daughters'—— ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... office boxes and records were destroyed, but nothing more. We were as usual in the advance camp, and did not hear what had happened until next morning, when Lady Canning arrived dressed in Lady Campbell's clothes; and as Lady Canning was tall, and Lady Campbell was short, the effect was rather funny. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... people have a funny way of revealing themselves," Lady Clanroyden laughed. "I'm not at all sorry that Lewie was beaten. He is the best man in the world, but one wants to shake him up. His motto is 'Thole,' and he gets too few opportunities ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the "comic" cartoons of the newspapers have an extraordinary fascination for children. Every child wants to read the funny page, though the funny page is not for childish reading. The humor is coarse, slangy, and distinctly vulgar; very clever frequently and thoroughly enjoyable to those whom ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... crowd, which had gathered on the station to watch the departure of a prince, thereupon broke into loud outbursts of laughter, and when I said to them, 'I suppose you are glad that this happened to me?' they replied, 'Yes, it was very funny.' On this incident I based my axiom that you can please the German public by your misfortunes if by nothing else. As there was no other train to Leipzig for five hours I telegraphed to my brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus (whom I had asked to put me up), ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... for mother! How funny! There must be some mistake," said Eugenia, putting her head in at the door. "Are you ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... "It was the appanage of Monsieur; but the gates were shut and barricaded. After they had been told that it was I," writes Mdlle., "they did not open; and I was there three hours. The governor sent me some sweetmeats, and what appeared to me rather funny was that he gave me to understand that he had no influence. At the window of the sentry-box was the Marquis d'Halluys, who watched me walking up and down by the fosse. The rampart was fringed with people who shouted incessantly, 'Hurrah for the king! hurrah for the princes! None of your Mazarin!' ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of jokes and fun, and every one laughed all the time, even with their mouths full, which is not manners. Robert thought father would not have been quite so funny about his keeping his over-coat on if father had known all the truth. And there ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... "It's funny how small this world is, and how time flies. I supposed you all noticed the tall, bald-headed man with the spectacles who ran up and hugged me to-day. Ain't he the ugly one? His ma certainly did hand his pa a lemon when he was born. Why, if I had been a long-lost brother ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... guess you know I'm no scatterbrain and I guess you know I'm not one to cry wolf—but there's something damned funny going on in the old Fisher place on the Range Road. You better send a man down here, and I mean quick. You have him ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... of the Greeks For passengers o'er sea to carry Both monkeys full of tricks And funny dogs to make them merry. A ship, that had such things on deck, Not far from Athens, went to wreck. But for the dolphins, all had drown'd. They are a philanthropic fish, Which fact in Pliny may be found;— A better voucher who could ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... "It was so funny to see the postman when he came this evening," said Olive. "He just bulged with parcels. They were sticking ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Tumbling Tom, a queer toy who never could stand up, because he was made in such a funny way that he always fell down. "I wonder if there is going to be ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... probable causes that lead to such steps are, of course, much debated. We remember seeing, not long ago, in the newspapers, a brief table of such causes, purporting to come from an army surgeon who examined each recruit on the subject. It was funny, and so startling withal, that while some laughed or stood aghast, others hardly knew which to admire most, the doctor's eccentricity, or his fertile fancy. We know not if in the world's vast library there is any reliable exhibition of such causes. Sir Walter Scott's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... for whom I felt a need, and I was as happy with him as, I suppose, it is possible for any one to be on this funny ball of clay. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... intoxicating cup of good nature, which cheers, but does not cheat. Laughter paints pictures, dreams dreams, and floods life with love. Blessed are the people who can laugh! Laughter is religion and hope; and the apostles of good nature, who see the bright side of life, the queer and funny things among men, the clowns in Vanity Fair, as well as the deep and terrible pathos of life, are missionaries of comfort and evangels ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... feet to about 1200 feet in four gigantic loops, and, as one writer said: "He was doing exactly what the clown in the pantomime does when he climbs to the top of a staircase and rolls deliberately over and over until he reaches the ground. But this funny man stopped before he reached the ground, and took his last flight as gracefully as a ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... down our tears, and took a little lesson in real love, which we never forgot, nor the look that the tired man and the tender woman gave one another. It was half tragic and comic, for father was very dirty and sleepy, and mother in a big nightcap and funny ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... our supplies to the hut we went out to where a gang of soldiers who were off duty had gathered in the forest. One was playing a harmonica and another was "jigging" and telling funny stories. Instantly and gladly they swung the gathering into a religious service, with songs from the "Y" hymn book and a fine snappy address as a speaker stood on a hummock surrounded by the silent, thoughtful ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... you reckon yourself a proper angel in the house," I said in my comical tone of voice. But he didn't see nothing very funny in that. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... afraid. She found the heat and noise too much for her. Half an hour ago she asked Captain Stump to take her to the yacht. Of course I told her I didn't mind being left here until some one came. But the funny part of it is that, although I was looking from the veranda, I failed to see either her or the captain ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... did meet two such nice English girls this afternoon—Gwendolin and Dorothy Morton—and an awfully funny, little man, a secretary at the German embassy. They say that ambassadors are as common in Lenox, ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... and peaks and pines and ash doing a daylight dance. They whirled about in the most eccentric manner, yet it was all exhilarating, in thorough accord with his own spirits, and Dick laughed aloud with glee. What a merry, funny world it was! Feet and head both grew lighter. He shouted aloud and began to sing. Then he felt so strong and exuberant that he ran down one of the slopes, waving his cap. An elk sprang out of a pine thicket, stared a moment or two with startled eyes at the ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... I fell off a fence. Wonder if I lost my handkerchief?" He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew out a revolver, clasping it by the barrel. "That's funny. I don't remember—oh, yes." He stuffed it ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... one frosty winter evening, and we were all in good spirits. Two or three animated conversations were going on at the table. Father Payne was telling one of his dreams to the three who were nearest to him, and, funny as most of his dreams were, this was unusually so. There was a burst of laughter and a silence—a sudden sharp silence, in which Vincent, who was continuing a conversation, was heard to say to Barthrop, in a tone of fierce ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... young man paused in sudden confusion. "She's a very quiet, respectable, proud sort of young woman, Mr. Blaine—not at all the kind you would expect to find the daughter of an old crook like Jimmy Brunell. And by the way, here's a funny coincidence! She's a protegee of Miss Lawton's, employed in some philanthropic home or club, as she calls it, which Pennington Lawton's ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... at the front of the restaurant, near the violin. They glowed over soup and real meat and coffee. There were funny people at the next table—a man who made jokes. Something about the "Yiddisher gavotte," and saying, "We been going to dances a lot, but last night the wife and I wanted to be quiet, so I bought me two front seats ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... as long as one may generalize he is comparatively safe from humiliating criticism. It is only when he begins to name things by name and say what is best for just where, that he touches the naked eyeball (or the funny-bone) of others whose crotchets are not identical with his. Yet in Northampton this is what we have to do, and since the competitors for our prizes always have the Where before they are moved to get ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... rest of the members of St. Chad's Honor was also on good terms. She could be very amusing and full of racy Irish humour when she liked, and would send the girls into fits of laughter with her quaint sayings and funny stories. Her nickname of "Paddy Pepper-box" stuck to her, and ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... it was the 'best meetin' they were ever at.' They say 'Miss Hartford did look so funny when she got scared.' I tell them they may laugh at me but not at the poor woman who shouted. I tell them that shouting and falling in fits is not religion, that the poor woman was probably a good christian, but her shouting and spells do not ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... beauties and soon the banco was a bower of fragrant and brilliant flowers. Playfully Piang caught at a vine, floating in the wake of an island. The natural boat led him gently about, twisting and circling back and forth. He laughed merrily. The islands were too funny! They seemed almost human in their antics. Some had regular routes, and, like mail boats touched the same spot again and again, only to be hurried on as the current caught them. Others with malicious intent strayed in the path of their more systematic brothers, bumping ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... It's funny how anxious you are about young Mr. Alving. (In a lower tone.) Oho! is it possible that it is ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... I drove the queerest bird here—a fellow as good-looking as you, who had me follow the taxi occupied by a hunchback with a face like Old Nick." The man hesitated and went on haltingly: "It might sound goofy, mister, but there was something funny about my fare. He jumped out, asked me the charge, and, in the moment I glanced at my taxi-meter, he disappeared. Yes, sir. Vanished, owing me four dollars, six bits. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Chauvinism of their Oriental policy. Like the late M. MASSIE, whose shade he invokes, the young Prince seems to object to us, not because we commit any specific acts of hostility, but "because we look on in a most aggravating fashion." This is truly funny! One country may steal a—Tonkin, but another may not look over a boundary! Prince HENRY presents a peculiarly close parallel to KEENE'S infuriated (and incoherent) Paterfamilias, who angrily commanded his silent son "not to look at him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... might hesitate about that; yet, nevertheless, it is too funny to think that a mere newspaper woman, coming into a city which contains only one or two of her friends, should dare to talk to the Chief of Police as I have done to-night, and force him actually to beg that I shall remain in the city and ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... have the solution myself until a few hours ago—it hit me all at once. Funny I never thought of it before; it's been right in ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... "Funny, ain't it," he remarked, "the different things the same word means to a bunch of folks. Say romance to me, and I don't see no dim laboratory. I don't see nothing dim. I see the brightest lights in the world, and the ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... Brendon and Althea think I'm funny. Poor old baby-doll Althea! She must be furious. She was so sure ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... it, brennschluss had come pretty early. The trip apparently was going to be a short one. Brennschluss ... funny, he thought, how words stay on in a language even after their original meaning is changed. Brennschluss was German for "burn out." It was rocket talk, and it meant the moment when all the fuel in a rocket burned out. It had come into common use because the English "burn out" also could ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... physic him. At this Mrs. Makely and her husband laughed so that I found myself unable to go on for some moments, till Mrs. Makely, with a final shriek, shouted to him: "Dick, do stop, or I shall die! Excuse me, Mr. Homos, but you are so deliciously funny, and I know you're just joking. You won't mind my ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... bright and funny as Kitty?" demanded Dorene. "If she is we certainly shall lay siege to you two for our sorority. We ought to have first claim, for all the other Lloydsboro Valley girls belong to us. Come ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... MINTO, as Dorothy Gedge, typewriter (with the nom de guerre of Gedage), was a little angular, and the motive of her spasmodic excursions across the stage was not always apparent. But she was extremely funny in her inimitable way when she had a chance of exhibiting the unreasonableness of her selection as a mouthpiece of the Muses. At the end, when she wonders if she could have been happy with Glandeville and knows that she would be happy with Gilder, she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... to know what you are thinking down in the bottom of your mind! It must be something awfully funny. What are you turning so ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... got funny again, and he and John the Swede learned that Captain Thompson had several months before sailed in command of a ship for the coast of Sumatra, and that their chance of proceedings against him at law was hopeless. Sam ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... manuscript sermons, and a government situation. Other editors bear witness to the character of their advertisers, and recommend doctors, undertakers, waiting maids, footmen, and various tradesmen. Some of the advertisements are very funny. 'I want a compleat young man that will wear a livery, to wait on a very, valuable gentleman, but he must know how to play on a violin or flute.' Was the 'very valuable gentleman,' we wonder, troubled like Saul with an ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... acting as a super in the sensational drama She, by H. Rider Haggard. Two Englishmen were penetrating the mysterious jungles of Africa, and I was their native guide and porter. They had me all blacked up like a negro minstrel, but this wasn't a funny show, it was a drama of mystery and terror. While I was guiding the English travelers through the jungle of the local stage, we penetrated into the land of the ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... get the door shut, a funny little manikin, with green trousers and a red cap, came running in, and followed the tiny women into the kitchen, seized hold of a handful of wool, and began to card it. Another wee, wee woman followed him, and then another tiny manikin, and another, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... great lakes pumped dry. Some of the busiest streets are water, while many of the country roads are paved with brick. The city boats with their rounded sterns, gilded prows, and gaily painted sides, are unlike any others under the sun; and a Dutch wagon, with its funny little crooked pole, is a perfect mystery ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... whisper, breaking a little with laughter). Oh, my goodness! there I went again. But how funny! I assure you, Edward, that if their remarks had not been about me, I could have really quite enjoyed some of them. I wish there had been somebody here to take them down. And I hope I shall see some of the speakers in the morning before—Edward, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Well, that's a d——d funny way gittin' on top of a hoss," said Curly. "Are you 'fraid the saddle's goin' to git away from you? Better be 'fraid ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... and Mr. Lincoln called me up to a place by his side. 'Dana,' said he, 'have you ever read any of the writings of Petroleum V. Nasby?' 'No, sir,' I said, 'I have only looked at some of them, and they seemed to me funny.' 'Well,' said he, 'let me read you a specimen,' and pulling out a thin yellow-covered pamphlet from his breast pocket he began to read aloud. Mr. Stanton viewed this proceeding with great impatience, as I could see; ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... inward smile, remembered a story she had thought at the time rather funny. That of a lady who had said to her husband, "Oh, do come and see them, they are so very rich." And he had answered, "My dear, I would if ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... "How funny," he said at last with the utmost seriousness, and was making for the door, when the voice of his ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... position by 5 P.M. On the 17th we opened fire at seven, and attacked the place. Here Admiral Protet was killed; he was among 500 men, and was the only one struck. The town was a wretched affair, and a good many Chang-mows escaped. These Chang-mows are very funny people; they always run when attacked. They are ruthlessly cruel, and have a system of carrying off small boys under the hope of training them up as rebels. We always found swarms of these boys who had been taken from their parents (whom ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... "It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should consider yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything before you, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... parrot, and a monkey once lived together in a funny little red house, with one great round window like a big eye set in the front. And they were a very happy family as long as they had an old woman to cook their dinner and mend their clothes. But one sad day the old woman was taken ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... presently, but the doggie barked so furiously that I got scared and climbed a little tree. Just as I got to the top, the tree broke off at the roots and 'down came Sammy, tree top and all.' The fall woke me, and I found I had rolled out of bed. Wasn't that a funny dream?" ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 9, March 1, 1914 • Various
... of Dr. Paramore's disease while it is the most farcical thing in the play is also the most philosophic and important. The rest of the figures, including the Philanderer himself, are in the full sense of those blasting and obliterating words "funny without being vulgar," that is, funny without being of any importance to the masses of men. It is a play about a dashing and advanced "Ibsen Club," and the squabble between the young Ibsenites and the old people who are not yet up to Ibsen. It would be hard to find a stronger example of Shaw's ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... you shall be the first man to ride behind the chestnuts." "Thank ye kindly, I'll take your advice at all events," replied Mr. Frampton, helping himself to a glass of port; "and as to your offer, why I'll transfer that to him (indicating Coleman), 'funny boy,' as I used to call him, when he was a boy, and he doesn't seem much altered ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... suppose we should not go on this way," or some such allusion, that reminds the company of how differently they are wont to go on at home,-one can, under such circumstances generally provoke a fit of merriment. To the traveler, every day is a day of adventures—frequently of rather funny adventures! ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... created by Dogget, was on a revival played (to his own immense satisfaction) by Colley Cibber. In Araminta Mrs. Bracegirdle began (in a faint outline as it were) the series of lively, sympathetic, intelligent heroines which Congreve wrote for her. Lord Falkland's Prologue is as funny as it is indecently suggestive, which is saying a great deal. The one actually spoken gave an opportunity of the merriest archness to Mrs. Bracegirdle, and was calculated to put the audience in the ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... And really, when Paklin was not laughing, when he was silent, his face assumed a dejected, almost scared expression; it became funny and rather sarcastic only when he opened his lips. Ostrodumov did not say anything, however, and ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... funny," she said, "that red calico there on the Virgin. Father, I have some laces which were my mother's, who was a good woman, and which have never been worn by me. They are all I have to remember France by and the days ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... seeing you." She smiled. "You're a funny one. But kind of nice." Her lips brushed his and then she got up and left. Dalgetty went out the door and punched for a ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... he took the greater part of the conversation upon himself, and evidently expected to be listened to. But that was nearly all he wanted. Let him talk, and hear you laugh when he was funny, and he was satisfied. He seemed to have no inordinate desire for admiration or even for approbation. He was fond of telling tales of adventure, some wonderful, some absurd, some having nothing in them but his own presence, and occasionally, while the detail was good ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... rocking of the train, like lotos-flowers in a soft current. (This use of the left sleeve is either fortuitous or instinctive; probably instinctive, as the right hand serves best to cling to strap or seat in case of shock.) The spectacle is at once pretty and funny, but especially pretty, as exemplifying that grace with which a refined Japanese woman does everything,—always in the daintiest and least selfish way possible. It is pathetic, too, for the attitude is also that of sorrow, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... pleased to see me. He was now more pro-Slav even than the Russians, and as he had been more Turk than the Turks only two years before, he must have known that his volte face was, to me, rather comical. And he is the kind of man that does not like being thought funny. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... admitted Ruth; "but if you'd ever talk to that funny little thing over near the piano, you'd be disgusted with freshmen, too. She sort of keeps her mouth open, as if she weren't quite all there, and makes the queerest replies—or else none at all. But she's the most hopeless one ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... for its readers? Which newspaper cartoons do you look at regularly, and which are your favorites? Bring to class examples of cartoons, and then divide the collection into three groups—those that you think drive home a truth; those that you think are funny and clever; and those that you think are merely silly. Prepare an exhibit for "Cartoon Day" in your school, selecting the material from these examples. Clip and bring to class newspaper jokes that you and your family ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... some dealers in fine objects, quite mercenary people of course (my mother has an experience in that world), show sometimes an astonishing reluctance to part with some specimens, even at a good price. It must be very funny. It's just possible that the uncle and the aunt have been rolling in tears on the floor, amongst their oranges, or beating their heads against the walls from rage and despair. But I doubt it. And in any case Allegre is not the sort of person that gets ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... don't traipse!" Momentary indignation shone in the beautiful eyes and passed like a gleam of light. "Dear Aunt Liza," laughed Columbine, "aren't you funny?" ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... word. It was so funny when Lucy asked whether the thing chosen was animal, vegetable, or mineral? and Willy replied, "All three," for he explained in a whisper, there was always salt in hash, and salt was a mineral. "Have you all seen it?" ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Funny things, colts grazing. Short bodies that stopped at their shoulders; long, long necks hanging down like tails, pushing their heads along the ground. She could hear their nostrils breathing and the scrinch, scrinch of ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... Only, funny as she might be in her general feebleness, and badly as she might have behaved in some distant past, for Lady Rawlins she felt sorry. Her kind heart told Mary that this unhappy person also possessed a heart, although she was now stout and on the wrong side of middle age. She was ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... he exulted. "Maybe that gives me a chance with Gertie, then. But I won't let her know Ben ain't in love with her any more. Jiminy! ain't it lucky Gertie liked me just when Ben fell in love with somebody else! Funny the way things go; and her never knowing about Ben." He laid down his cards. While they plowed through the hard snow-drifts, swinging their arms against their chests like milkmen, he blurted out all his secret: that Gertie was the "slickest girl in town"; that ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... course it's all right for girls to bother about being pretty.' He lures her away from the subject. 'I can tell you a funny thing about that. We had theatricals at Osborne one night, and we played a thing called ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... those mythical, strange sort of devils who come to earth, you know, and—and—make love to ladies—a sort of Satan like in Marie Corelli's lovely book. You remember, Tamara, the one you were so funny about, laughing ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... tall and thin, with a dark, wicked-looking face, and he has a nasty scar on the right cheek, slanting across it to the mouth. But the funny thing is, that with all his rags and drunkenness there is something of the gentleman about him. I don't like him, yet I can't dislike him. He's attractive in his own way from his very wickedness. But I'm sure,' finished Bell, with a vigorous nod, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful manner. My boy, said the landlord, you'll have the nightmare to a dead sartainty. Landlord, I whispered, that aint the harpooneer, is it? Oh, no, said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, the harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don't—he eats nothing but steaks, and likes 'em rare. The devil he does, says I. Where is that harpooneer? Is he here? He'll be here afore long, was the answer. I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... where I am and which is just between the city and the enceinte of forts. A shell overreaching this latter, from the enemy's field cannon, would, I should say, tumble right into our "zone." But we do not even admit of such a possibility in speaking to each other. Isn't it funny how we continue to deceive ourselves and life is a sham ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... maybe. Didn't come very near it, though. First wreck I ever saw and don't want to see any more. Funny thing, though, I didn't mind it at all until I was on the train going to Cincinnati. Excitement, I suppose. Then I came near keeling over, honest! What do you know ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... faded out, I saw Miss Mary, when 'twas over, put her head down on the table and just cry and cry. Look like she couldn't help it. She thought I didn't know a thing. But I did. I knowed she cared. Warn't it funny for a lady like her to care about a little child like me what comes of factory folks and ain't got nothin' ahead ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... BABBALANJA—Very funny, your Highness:—amazing jolly! And from my nethermost soul, would to Oro, thou could'st but feel one touch of that jolly woe! It would appall thee, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... said how, in the fust part of their acquaintance, master used to laff at De l'Orge's bad Inglish, and funny ways. The little creature had a thowsnd of these; and being small, and a Frenchman, master, in cors, looked on him with that good-humored kind of contemp which a good Brittn ot always to show. He rayther treated him like an intelligent ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Gaff, after a time, "this may be uncommonly funny, but I'd like to know what ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... Calverley's, is to make the reader laugh. "He elected," says Mr Coulson Kernahan, "to don the cap and bells when he might have worn the singing robes of the poet": a description of one who chose to be a jester when he might have been serious, and hardly applicable to Locker, who is never a professed "funny man." Mr Kernahan is far more just when he claims for "London Lyrics" a kind of sober gentleness which moves neither to laugh nor to weep: "his sad scenes may touch us to tender melancholy, but never to tears; his gay ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... tension; an old joke tells better among friends travelling than at home,—which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, rather than increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps to your pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows—on the road from Milan to Venice.—Caelum, non animum,—travellers change their guineas, but not their characters. The bore is the same, eating dates under the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans in Beacon Street.—Parties of travellers ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... banner, and oh, boy, that kid did look funny, holding it up. He was scowling as if he thought he could frighten buildings out of the way. The stuff he had inside of his patented megaphone kept rattling and he sounded like a junk dealers' convention ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... home, and spent the evening in writing—Anne and Lady Scott at the theatre to see Mathews; a very clever man my friend Mathews; but it is tiresome to be funny for a whole evening, so I was content and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... fireman on the road, and if he don't slip you one with a shovel for your withering ignorance he'll tell you just what I'm telling you now. Yes, you and your funny friend." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... have anything like shooting going on, fer I've got some friends back here a little way waiting to joy ride back with me when my work's over. They might get funny if they heard a gun and ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the "old masters"—not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in the next page he enlarges the scope of his enmity; "speaking generally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... with what tenacity that amusing though mischievous superstition keeps its hold upon the human mind—that grave bona fide personification of abstractions and the funny delusion that it is possible to hate or love them. Sin is not a thing; there is no existing object corresponding to any of the mere counter-words that are properly named abstract nouns. One can no more hate ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... chose a funny piece, and on this afternoon set them all laughing by the spirit with which she spoke the droll poem, "Pussy's Class," which some of my young readers may have read. The "meou" and the "sptzzs" were capital, and when the "fond mamma rubbed her nose," the children shouted, for Miss Bab made a paw ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... unlimited resource, lying on the white coverlid, so helpless that old Liza moved it in her great black palm as though it were a little child's; and across on the mantle shelf, where he could see it when his eyes were open, was that old picture of Cynthia with the funny little curls. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... Dutch girl, and was charming in the picturesque Holland headgear, and a tight-waisted, long-skirted blue gown, that just cleared the tops of her clattering wooden sabots. She talked a Dutch dialect, or rather, what she imagined was such, and if not real Hollandese, it was at least, very amusing and funny. ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... but rather conclude that it arose from an opinion he entertained that the Portuguese never paid their debts, one of the ambassadors of that nation, whose house he had served, having left Paris several thousand francs in his debt. This is all that I have to say about Black Jack, without whose funny jokes, and good ordinary, I should have passed my time in Paris ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the grave of a millionnaire at home. How when the statue was finished, ready to be set up, this cousin had come to Brookfield, wearing a square- cut beard, straight-out mustaches with needle-points, and funny shoes with square toes. How the girl had been disposed to laugh at him until he had told her stories of the wonderful cities beyond the sea and of his life among the painters and sculptors; then she showed ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... not. Quite the contrary. Oh, Uncle Gilbert, I must tell you. It's too funny. He warned me in the most solemn way that I wasn't to attempt to make ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... a funny little steam tram marked St. Aubin's," interposed Frances. "It's going somewhere. Look at the dinky cars with a kind of balcony and ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... read him you will find that he is the reverse of Beerbohm Tree as Hamlet. Tree's Hamlet was funny without being vulgar. Jerome's writings are vulgar without being funny. His books are like Academy pictures. They are all deserving of ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... should be at once discontinued in my trains. The wretched "Whisky," after his voyage to the Eternal City, appeared quite overcome with what he had there seen, and continued to stagger along the trail, making feeble efforts to keep straight. This tendency to wobble caused the half-breeds to indulge in funny remarks, one of them calling the track a "drunken trail." Eventually, "Whisky" was abandoned to his fate. I had never been a believer in the pluck and courage of the men who are the descendants of mixed European and Indian parents. Admirable as guides, unequalled as voyageurs, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... He even paints his funny face with red and yellow, and draws big black rings around his eyes. He wears a deerskin jacket, with bright colored beads sewed tightly on it. Iktomi dresses like a real Dakota brave. In truth, his paint and deerskins are the best part of him—if ever dress ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... just as you were trying to interfere in my affairs, this key should, so to speak, fall into my hand. Fate plays some funny little pranks ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... answered. "Why, I think I can remember even now his very first words to me: 'Hello,' he said, 'why are you doing me such a good turn?' 'Because you have just done me one. I slept all night in your office,' I answered. He didn't seem surprised and I thought that rather funny. But afterwards I learned that he had been a poor boy himself and had slept in all sorts of queer places. He is still poor enough, goodness knows, but he has graduated in law and set up an office. He will succeed some day, sure as faith. You can bet ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... Mr. Dart easily, "I ain't sure it was ninety-six. Might have been ninety-seven. Funny he ain't ever told you about me. Never mentioned, did he, how we got into a snow drift one time and had to eat our dogs and I got him ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... never pausing more than an instant, not even when she plumped a morsel into a waiting mouth. She led her little procession by her querulous-sounding "quank," while they replied with a low "chir-up" in the same tone. It was a very funny sight. They could fly nicely, but never seemed to think of looking for food, and it was plain that the busy little mother had no time to teach them. It was interesting to see her deal with a moth which she found napping on a fence. ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... has on Inishbawn," said Priscilla. "Do you know, Cousin Frank, you're quite too funny for words when you go in for being grand. Now would you like me to wheel you up to the hall-door and ring the bell, or would you rather we sneaked round through the shrubbery into the yard, and got in by the gunroom door and so up ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... when it seems funny. After all, the matter was simple—absurdly simple. A word to Quarrier, and crack! the match was off! Girl mad as a hornet, but staggered, has no explanation to offer; man frozen stiff with rage, mute as an iceberg. Then, zip! Enter Beverly Plank—the girl's rescuer at a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... frog took a blade of grass and fastened one of the mouse's front feet to one of his hind legs. When the frog leaped, the mouse tumbled after. Then they stopped and had a big laugh; it was very funny. ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry |
