"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more personal turn. Lord M. would describe his boyhood, and she would learn that "he wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was 17; (how handsome he must have looked!)." Or she would find out about his queer tastes and habits—how he never carried a watch, which seemed quite extraordinary. "'I always ask the servant what o'clock it is, and then he tells me what he likes,' said Lord M." Or, as the rooks wheeled about round the trees, "in a manner which indicated rain," he would say that ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... it in her room, and when she left Mrs. Bensusan she carried it with her down the country. In proof of the truth, she gave it to the vicar who wrote down her confession, and he sent it up with the papers to Scotland Yard. Queer case, isn't it?" ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... doubt that this little white house was the proper destination of the letter, Joshua Hicks administered an authoritative knock on the front door. The response came in the form of a queer little old lady, who wore a very expectant look, a look almost pathetically expectant. She was slight and wizened, and stood straight. But her face was deeply wrinkled and her hair was ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... seen through my glass as though not six feet away. I saw his beak and throat, and am absolutely certain that he delivered every note. The absorbed singer stood there motionless a long time, and carried on this queer conversation with himself. It sounded precisely like two birds, one of whom was mocking or ridiculing the other in ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... mother. It seems Bernie has never visited there before, though she has been to the house. Her uncle is queer, and why he wants his two nieces all of a sudden, and his two nieces' friends, nobody knows. It's sort of ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... comfortably. Mr. Weatherley returned to the house. Fenella led the way through a little iron gate to a queer miniature garden, a lawn brilliant with flower-beds, ending in a pergola of roses. They passed underneath it and all around them the soft, drooping blossoms filled the whole air with fragrance. At the end was the river and a wooden ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conversed in a queer lingo, for Harry was trying his hardest to learn Arabic, but had to eke it out at present with a good many English and French words. Hassib had a smattering of both those languages, and after a little practice ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... a queer turn," said Grace as she looked at the scribbled letter of her brother, so strangely forwarded to them. "There is no telling how long ago this was written. Poor Will is probably having a hard time this ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... be antediluvian, a model of the ark taken from nature at the time when Noah arrived in that extraordinary harbour, Mount Ararat, in Armenia. He load several medals, one of Sesostris, another of Semiramis, and an old knife of a queer shape, covered with rust. Besides all those wonderful treasures, he possessed, but under lock and key, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... all the lions under my escort. Good heavens! I wish you could have seen certain other mahogany-faced men (also captains) who used to call here for him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at night, with rum-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication of punchy smells in his mouth! He was better than a comedy to us, having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handkerchief round his neck at dinner-time in ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... over his foot, and it crushed the bones, but the obstinate fool would not let the doctors take it off. I remember him now as a smart young soldier in Afghanistan. He and I were associated in some queer adventures, which I may tell you of some day, and I naturally feel sympathy towards him, and would befriend him. Did he tell you anything ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... independent of the world, And little recks of strife or angry brawl, If 'gainst a host his banner be unfurled, Be his heart stout, it matters not at all. With woman 'tis not so; for she seems hurled From hand to hand, as is a tennis ball. How queer that such a difference should be Between a human ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... cried Ned. "That's a queer kind. I've seen the kind they use in some guns on the battleships. That powder was in hexagonal form, about two inches across, and had a hole in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... afternoon," she said, "it made me think of the birds in the trees at home, of the brook in the woods, of the white rose in my hand, and I longed to give it to you, but when I saw all these lovely flowers, I felt that you would not care for my one blossom, you would not understand,—" with a queer little break in her voice, Randy ceased speaking and looking up into the brilliant face was surprised to see two bright tears ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... delights him, and he has no eyes for the chaste beauty of perfect art. The story of an outlaw fills him with enthusiasm, and the heroic struggles of godlike souls are for him meaningless. He gazes with envious awe upon some vulgar rich man, and finds a philosopher, or a saint, only queer. He studies because he has been sent to school, where ignorance will expose him to ridicule and humiliation, and possibly too, because he is told that knowledge will help him to win money and influence. ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... went till they came to a queer little old man standing before a big, big book. Granny went daintily ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... down the untried water-way which was opened to his boat. The idea that any one had found Markham in such a place and at such an hour was too extraordinary to be credited. Toyner looked eagerly into the mist. He could see nothing but queer-shaped gulfs of light between trunks and branches. Again his boat rubbed unexpectedly against a stump, and again the strange premonition of approaching death came over him. For a moment he thought that his wisest course would be to ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... eccentricity. In another chapter I shall explain why the conditions have not been favorable to the development of individual singularity during the latter half of the present century. It is easier to do that than fully to account for the numerous queer human types which have existed from time to time ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... here to take care of me. Instead, I have pressed her into the service and trained her until she is one of the best nurses I have ever had under me. The men adore her, she is so strong and so full of her queer, jolly fun." ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... into the theater, with Stephen in their midst, and took noisy occupancy. Opera-glasses were turned their way, and the girls nudged one another and talked about the man in the middle with the queer garments. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... ears. Hodge scratches his head and says: 'Well, I have nothing to say to that; all I know is that he is bang up, and I wish I were he'; perhaps he will add—a Hodge has been known to add—'He has been kind enough to put my son on that very railroad; 'tis true the company is somewhat queer, and the work rather killing; but he gets there half-a-crown a day, whereas from the farmers he would only get eighteenpence.' You remind the mechanic that the man in the landau has been the ruin of thousands, and you mention people ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... long ago, a thoughtful man studying Nature's secrets far and wide found up in a valley where a stream had worn a deep fissure, a queer little rock. When he looked at it, he saw running over it a strange design, as though some fairy with its magic pencil had drawn the outline of a fern with every vein distinct, showing in every line the life of the long-lost plant. It was the fern ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... you gents think this is a queer kind of a craft," said the man, with a grin of pleasure at our evident curiosity; "and if ye think that, ye are about right, for there isn't jist such another one as far as I know. This is a floating grocery, and I am ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... boundary of Russia our way was no better. There we saw queer projections of boards around trees to keep bears ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the room and entered the library, thinking deeply. "I wonder where that boy gets those queer ideas from. I am very much pleased that I suggested those Bible lessons, for if he was not enlightened, ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... quite as valueless as one, and probably will; but it looks queer, for it is made out in proper form, and only verifies ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... the linen hamper," she said. "It must be Mr. Halsey's, but it seems queer how it ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "That's a queer place to build a house," said Sam, as he surveyed the scene; "no one can earn a living there, and it must make a long walk to reach the neighborhood where work ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... sitting-room, and among them I recognised the flushed, perspiring face of Mrs. Cudlip herself. As I entered, the women fell slightly apart, and I saw that they regarded me with startled, compassionate glances. A queer, strong smell of drugs was in the air, and near the kitchen door my father was standing with a frightened and sheepish look on his face, as if he had been thrust suddenly into a prominence from which ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... woman?" said the chemist's apprentice behind the counter. "It's my opinion there's something wrong with her. She's been asking for laudanum to put to a bad tooth. Master's out for half an hour, and I told her I wasn't allowed to sell poison to strangers in his absence. She laughed in a queer way, and said she would come back in half an hour. If she expects master to serve her, I think she'll be disappointed. It's a case of suicide, sir, if ever there ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... tenancy to take more than a passing account of my belongings. In excusing myself for this rather careless oversight, I can only say that during daylight hours the castle was so completely stuffed with workmen and their queer utensils that I couldn't do much in the way of elimination, and by night it was so horribly black and lonesome about the place and the halls were so littered with tools and mops and timber that it was extremely ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... circled round and round this queer grey pile wondering what on earth it could be. One boy venturing a little nearer than the others trod on a live cinder, for the fire was not as dead as it ought to have been, and jumped back howling and hopping round and round on one foot, ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... the gruff answer. "For one thing, it wouldn't do me a bit of good to deny it. When a fellow has a bad name everywhere any judge and jury will hang him. Now, I happen to object to being hanged, or even to being locked up for perhaps twenty or thirty years. Queer in me, isn't it?" ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... a dozen times a day. I'm fourteen years old. My home was in Baltimore. I came on to New York yesterday with a friend of the second Mrs. John's—I mean, of Mrs. Maitland's—and stayed there last night. To-day I came on the train as far as it went, then in the stage with the queer driver blowing a horn. It was just like a story-book. This home, too, and everybody might be out of a story-book, all so unlike anything I ever saw. But, I beg your pardon. I've just thought that, though you seem to hear well enough, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... appearance. The sea rolls in and breaks upon the yellow beach, which extends from east to west for some seventy kilometres in an irregular line, unbroken by rocks or cliffs. Above the beach are the dunes, a long range of sandhills, tossed into all sorts of queer shapes by the wind, on which nothing grows but rushes or stunted Lombardy poplars, and which reach their highest point, the Hoogen-Blekker, about 100 feet above the sea, near Coxyde, a fishing village four or five miles from Nieuport. Behind the dunes a strip of undulating ground ('Ter ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... I was only just before thinking that I was getting over being so shaky and nervous, and not so queer about myself, and then for me to break down like that. Of all the cowardly cranks I ever did come across! Oh, I say, Mr Jack, sir, ain't you ashamed ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... something like a dusty roadway. Many tracks crossed and re-crossed one another, becoming just a bewildering mass to the untrained eye. In the present instance, the situation in the Atwood apartment had queer aspects which seemed to connect it with the incident of the night before. The suspicious points were not so glaringly apparent, perhaps, as the circumstances which connected the man Marsh, but they were there just the same. While the Atwood situation attracted ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... Morning or Evening Walk. It broke from him to several Boats that passed by us upon the Water; but to the Knight's great Surprize, as he gave the Good-night to two or three young Fellows a little before our Landing, one of them, instead of returning the Civility, asked us what queer old Put we had in the Boat, and whether he was not ashamed to go a Wenching at his Years? with a great deal of the like Thames-Ribaldry. Sir ROGER seemd a little shocked at first, but at length assuming a Face of Magistracy, told us, That if he were a Middlesex Justice, he would make such Vagrants ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... results of village experience. A great deal of native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,—at least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft.... But on the whole, I liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been practicable to put in his place." [Footnote: "Yesterdays with ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... sake I will; we may see others of our acquaintance before leaving this,’ says he, sorter queer-like, as if to mean, no ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... watched, the flap of the tent was raised, and a very old man came out. He was so tall that he had to bend almost double in stooping under the canvas of the low tent. A queer old man, Norah thought him, as she drew back instinctively into the shadow of the trees. When he straightened himself he was wonderfully tall—taller even than Dad, who was over six feet. He wore no hat, and his hair and beard were very long, and as white as snow. Under bushy ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... Tooni paid Sheik Uddin tenpence, and admired her purchase very much. She dressed Sonny Sahib in it doubtfully, however, with misgivings as to what his father would say. Certainly it was good cloth, of a pretty colour, and well made, but even to Tooni, Sonny Sahib looked queer. Abdul had no opinion, except about the price. He grumbled at that, but then he had grumbled steadily for two years, yet whenever Tooni proposed that they should go and find the captain-sahib, had said no, it was far, and he was an ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... known her better he would have had matter for surprise and conjecture in the fact that her patience cards stood untouched in their shabby leather case, but knowing nothing of that he fell to wondering what her husband had seen in such a queer little creature to marry her. The consideration of that question led him to the conclusion that perhaps Thalassa had been impelled to his choice by the realization that she was as good-looking a wife as he could afford. Barrant reflected that women resembled horses in value. The mettlesome showy ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... end of the next month a huge unwieldly foundation caisson was on the ways at a shipyard in Baltimore. I was just a kid at the time, but the queer shape of this interested me right from the start. It was like a bottomless box, thirty-two feet square on the inside and twelve feet high. It was so thick that a tall man could lie down crosswise on one of the walls and stretch out his arms to the full, and then there would be several ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... at the papers again. Mr. Thompson's background was impressive indeed. There didn't seem to be much question as to his ability. But what a queer duck ...
— The Observers • G. L. Vandenburg
... swung into the road, the Subaltern could not help thinking that this was indeed a queer send-off. A few sergeants' wives, standing at the corner of the Parade ground, were saying good-bye to their friends as they passed. "Good-bye, Bill;" "Good luck, Sam!" Not a hint of emotion in their voices. One might have thought that husbands and fathers went away to risk their lives ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... worked like a charm. Half of the men I went to see had kept the cards on their desks and I had no trouble getting their ears. Some were expecting a long lost relative. When they showed me my cards with their names on them I was always amazed at such a queer mistake. There was one exception. I told one man why I did it, and he nearly threw me ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... thinking of young Tidey at all," he declared, bluntly. "I was thinking of that young fellow at the end of the desk there—chap with a queer name—Chetwode, I think ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Keith felt a queer tightening at the heart. He understood that his father was referring darkly to Lucia Harden. He was surprised to find that even this remote and shadowy allusion was more than he could bear. He must call him off that trail; and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... it all came about, I can't say, for I never noticed anything wrong. True, some of the chaps talked a bit queer to me at times; but I thought 'twas all a bit of a flam; but, howsomever, one fine night my Yankee gentleman and the new hands takes the ship. At eight bells in the first watch, the watch below was called; ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... have a queer sound in nineteenth-century Massachusetts—were designed for the encouragement of special public service. Here are examples ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... queer look came over his face, and somehow the alert girl beside him knew what he was thinking of. 'Rill Scattergood was in his mind. He must have thought a great deal of the little school-mistress at one time—before he had married that other ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... the poor is, of course, equally essential. America is described by Mr. Lowell in the noblest panegyric ever made upon his own country, as "She that lifts up the manhood of the poor". She has taken some rather queer methods of securing that object lately; yet, however imperfect the result, every American traveller will, I believe, sympathise with what Mr. Bryce has recently said in his great book. America is still the land of hope—the land ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... that she could see her uncle, that was the capstone. He said he would give the guards a little present, and she must always go in the evening after dark, and say nothing, "but just show this paper and pass in, and show it again when you come out"—and he scribbled some queer marks on the paper and gave it to her, and she was ever so thankful, and right away was in a fever for the sun to go down; for in that old, cruel time prisoners were not allowed to see their friends, and sometimes they spent years in the jails without ever seeing a friendly face. I judged ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not explain, so she turned to the stove while mumbling to herself the doubts she had over the sanity of the women-folks of this queer ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... others of a different stripe. "We had a man with us at Menlo called Segredor. He was a queer kind of fellow. The men got in the habit of plaguing him; and, finally, one day he said to the assembled experimenters in the top room of the laboratory: 'The next man that does it, I will kill him.' They paid no attention to this, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... thing if I induce Henry to go home," thought Philip. "That is rather a queer idea of his about wanting to kill Indians. It seems to me as much murder to kill an Indian as ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... perfectly delightful 'best parties,' in which all the people who really enjoy meeting one another find themselves together, and are well fed and well housed and well mounted, and do exactly as they like; while the dear old duchess tramps in and out, with her queer beasts and birds, shedding a kindly and exciting influence wherever she goes. Last time I was there she used to let out six Egyptian jerboas in the drawing-room every evening after dinner, awfully jolly little beggars, like miniature kangaroos. They used to go skipping ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... May; "well, of all the queer schools! Ask a teacher if we may have a midnight supper? ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... amiable reference to the Great Elchi's reputation, no one knows better than Sir R. Burton by what queer methods reputations may be annexed, but it is strange that anyone with the reputation of a traveller should consider Constantinople to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... obscene nightingale beneath wet leaves. Children ran across the road. Here and there one could see brown panelling inside the hall door.... The march that the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough. Now distracted by brown panelling; now by a fern in a pot; here improvising a few phrases to dance with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... Italian stories which bear some resemblance to this queer legend: In the fourth novel of Arienti an advocate is fined for striking his opponent in court, and "takes his change" by repeating the offence; and in the second novel of Sozzini, Scacazzone, after dining sumptuously at an inn, and learning from the waiter that the law of that town ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... attractive children, and Henry, the baby, was a sturdy toddler, the pride of the household. Little Sam was the least promising of the flock. He remained delicate, and developed little beyond a tendency to pranks. He was a queer, fanciful, uncommunicative child that detested indoors and would run away if not watched—always in the direction of the river. He walked in his sleep, too, and often the rest of the household got up in the middle of the night to find him fretting ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... strange narrowness of ideas he viewed all the world in connexion only as it was or was not related to his little society. He considered queer and out of fashion all opinions that were exploded by his circle of intimates, and he became at the same time dogmatic and yet fearful of not coinciding with the only sentiments he could consider orthodox. To the generality ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... such a monotonous life," I asked Bielokurov, as we went home. "My life is tedious, dull, monotonous, because I am a painter, a queer fish, and have been worried all my life with envy, discontent, disbelief in my work: I am always poor, I am a vagabond, but you are a wealthy, normal man, a landowner, a gentleman—why do you live so tamely and take so little from life? Why, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... thing don't happen here once in five years," said he to me. "But the old codger who is dead, though a queer dick was a noted personage in these parts, and not a man, woman or child, who could find a horse, mule or donkey, but what availed himself of the privilege. Even the doctor's spavined mare was pressed into service, though she halts on one leg and stops to get her breath half a dozen times in ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... less marked in this case than it might have been in others. Even those who live in "residential parks" are sometimes forced (albeit with a curious sense of personal injury) to accept the idea that they who have greatly suffered find relief in "queer" ways. Mockwooders, assisting at the Heartholm tea-hour, and noting Berber among other casual guests, merely felt aggrieved and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... were at Roeskilde or Ringstedt. Oh, I really must be ill! It is no use to stand upon ceremony. But where in the world is the agent's house. There is a house, but it is not his; and people still up in it, I can hear. Oh dear! I certainly am very queer." As he reached the half-open door, he saw a light and went in. It was a tavern of the olden times, and seemed a kind of beershop. The room had the appearance of a Dutch interior. A number of people, consisting of seamen, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... of tricks. It's a queer business altogether, and I must say I feel inquisitive; certainly, if Hewitt can get anything out of those figures I shall be mighty curious to know how he does it. You'll come in ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... Tunk. "They're queer folks—them Frenchmen. This looks like an iron bar broke in two ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... out. It's not that she'd half kill me, as big as I am and as brave as I am. It's that I'm fond of her, and can't bring myself to break the heart in her. You may think it queer that a man should be fond of his mother, sir, and she having bet him from the time he could feel to the time she was too slow to ketch him; but I'm fond of her; and I'm not ashamed of it. Besides, didn't she win ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... one of the class Bret Harte describes as "those queer little adobe buildings, with tiled roofs like longitudinal slips of cinnamon," and belonged to a well-to-do family, the head of which was a large mule owner, who had amassed his wealth in carrying cargoes from the coast to ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... queer girl, is Pearlie," she said that night, when Pearl had gone upstairs to arbitrate a quarrel which had broken out between Bugsey and Danny as to whose turn it was to split the kindling wood. "Day about" it had been until Bugsey had urged that it be ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... make of it," Walter confessed. "Every few hundred feet there are branches partly broken off and left hanging. Queer, isn't it?" ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... saddles and bridles are queer-looking articles; but, for use, they could not be surpassed either for durability or comfort. Their bridle bits are the same as are used by the Mexicans. They are very powerful and intended for managing wild ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... had been looking at Mrs. Arbuthnot, now looked at Mrs. Wilkins. That day at the queer club she had had merely a blurred impression of Mrs. Wilkins, for it was the other one who did all the talking, and her impression had been of somebody so shy, so awkward that it was best to take no notice of her. She had not even been ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... state of things among the Ga's and Krumen and Bubi, and in all cases the tunes are only voice tunes, not for instrumental performance. The instrumental music consists of that marvellously developed series of drum tunes—the attempt to understand which has taken up much of my time, and led me into queer company—and the many tunes played on the 'mrimba and the orchid- root-stringed harp: they are, I believe, entirely distinct from the song tunes. And these peaceful tunes my men were now singing were, in their florid elaboration very different from the one they fought the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... when the chill wind blows through the deserted woods, the Chicadees seem to lose their wits for a few days, and dart into all sorts of queer places. They may then be found in great cities, or open prairies, cellars, chimneys, and hollow logs; and the next time you find one of the wanderers in any out-of-the-way corner, be sure to remember that the Chicadee goes crazy twice ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... rear coach. Miller wondered whether the dog would be allowed to ride with his master, and if not, what disposition would be made of him. He was a handsome dog, and Miller, who was fond of animals, would not have objected to the company of a dog, as a dog. He was nevertheless conscious of a queer sensation when he saw the porter take the dog by the collar and start in his own direction, and felt consciously relieved when the canine passenger was taken on past him into the baggage-car ahead. Miller's hand was hanging over ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... realized that something strange and disquieting in the case of a man who believed himself a cynic was stirring within him. That hostage of the doll was not sufficient to satisfy the sudden queer craving. The knowledge of the hopeless helplessness of that little girl throbbed through him. The memory of the spectacle of what he had left on the canal bank made the pathos of this little scene in the garret doubly poignant as he looked into the child's ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... nothing. I called at his office yesterday. He has not been there since the beginning of Charlotte's illness, and there has been no letter or message for Orcott since your wedding-day. Things look rather piscatorial, altogether. Orcott hints that Phil's affairs are in queer street; but he's a shallow-headed fool, and knows very little. It seems, by his account, that Phil was a Bull, and that the fall in every species of stock has been ruin to him. You see, when a man once ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Gentleman of Europe out of mischief. Our autobiographer gives us a plain, blunt, not to say bald record of what must have been an interesting life. He was at Eton under KEATE; a cadet at Woolwich, where he saw a gunner receive two hundred lashes; a gunnery subaltern in the Crimea, where he saw many queer and unedifying things; a successful administrator in Madagascar, Mauritius and Penang, and finally Governor of the Straits Settlements, with a K.C.M.G. and honourable retirement to follow. But he is a man of action rather than words, and his faculty of observation is but too often exercised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... She really couldn't help it; it relieved her feelings so very much. After all, it is rather nervy work to go down a chasm; and though she wouldn't own that she had minded in the least, her legs seemed weak and queer, and her hands were hot and trembling, and there was a funny buzzing sound in her head. She was rather ashamed of herself for losing her temper, however, and tried suddenly ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... remember it very well—very queer indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence, indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an extraordinary concurrence ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Frank, so that his face would not be noticed. The professor was nearsighted, but he immediately noted Rattleton's queer actions, and he placed himself in front of ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... queer girl," said Emily, opening her blue eyes very wide, "I'm afraid you have not the ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... brought out for JOHN BULL JUNIOR'S amusement at Christmas, and seasonably illustrated by FROST, is a queer sort of animal of the Two Macs Donkey breed. Right for NIMMO to have some fun at Christmas, according to old example, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... mark to say as he's a precious sight too fond of it; he's been on the drink, more or less, ever since we lost sight of the land. Well, sir, about a fortnight ago we begins to notice as he seemed a bit queer in his upper story; he took to talkin' to hisself as he walked the poop, and sometimes he'd march up to the man at the wheel and stare hard at him for a minute or so without sayin' a word, and then off he'd go again, a-mutterin' to hisself. The men didn't half like it, and at last one of 'em ups ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... uttered a queer long-drawn sound,—neither a chuckle, a crow, nor a laugh, but a mixture of all three,—and turned himself yet again to the work which, as he approached the end of his narration, he had suspended, that he might make his story tell, I suppose, by looking me ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... not say th' advantage is all on his side, for all I take credit for improving him above a bit. Sometimes he says a rough thing or two, which is not agreeable to look at at first, but has a queer smack o' truth in it when yo' come to chew it. He'll be coming to-night, I reckon, about them childer's schooling. He's not satisfied wi' the make of it, and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water, and a casual rainfall was utilised by turning out as catchers every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the skies bestowed was sufficient ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... riding down in the San Simon basin," spoke up Andy, rolling his second cigarette daintily between his finger-tips, "I had a kinda queer experience in a fog, once. It was thick as this one, and it rolled down just about as sudden and unexpected. That's a plenty wild patch uh country—or it was when I was there. I was riding for a Spanish gent that kept white men as a luxury and let the greasers do about all the rough work—such ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... "It's queer that my husband and Ben and Mr. Porter don't come," remarked Mrs. Basswood, when the meal was nearly over and it ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... nothing, those of them which did not mean worse than nothing, and the only difference between her and a hundred others around her was that she knew perfectly well that they all amounted to nothing, and didn't hesitate to say so, therefore she earned the title of "queer." At the same time she did not hesitate to lead the whirl around this continuous nothing, therefore she occupied that perilous position of being liked and admired and envied, all in one. Very few people loved her, and queerly ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... my own little place." She wandered around, touching her familiar possessions with caressing hands. "I've a good notion," she declared, "to go to bed immediately, just for the pleasure of lying in linen sheets again." Suddenly she turned to her mother. "I'm afraid you'll find I've made some queer friends, mother." ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said it, and what everybody says has ever been universally received as indisputable testimony. Many people, indeed, averred that Grim never had been quite right—that he always had been queer, and that since his mad marriage with that flighty bit of a child, Jacquelina, he had ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... This queer fellow whom everybody laughed at was really the chosen one,—chosen, however, with an intention which made such preference insulting. The choice escaped all public suspicion by its very improbability. Madame Schontz intoxicated Fabien with smiles given secretly, with little scenes played on the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... laughed at this speech, and then came and repeated it to me. I laughed heartily, too, and such a treaty of peace seemed to contain queer compensation clauses: Madame de Montespan and Mexica were mutually bound over to support each other; the spectacle was vastly ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... 'and some odd-looking ones too. You see, whatever has been really used by any child as a plaything gets a right to come down here in the end; and there is some very queer company, I assure you. ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Minnie's queer statement of the case, but was constrained to admit that it was at least fair in the main, if a little severe on the well-meant efforts ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... the northwestern shore of the old island of Hispaniola—the Santo Domingo of our day—and separated from it only by a narrow channel of some five or six miles in width, lies a queer little hunch of an island, known, because of a distant resemblance to that animal, as the Tortuga de Mar, or sea turtle. It is not more than twenty miles in length by perhaps seven or eight in breadth; it is only a little spot of land, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... were so queer, so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit in the general way, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... dat. You know him, senorita? So big like a great bear, vis de beautiful red hair like de color of dis dress. No? He so nice I just hate to have to fool him, but maybe I get chance to make eet all up some day—you tink so? Merciful saints! Ve are queer, ve vomens! Eet vas alvays de voman vat does like de vay you do, hey? Ve vas mooch fools all ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... over his thin features fell the light of a queer little half-smile which, instead of declaring itself, only provoked Bob Wilson's curiosity. In the silence Bye, with a hand unaccustomed to the exercise, made the familiar gesture that brought one of the busy attendants ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... "you are going to die, Dana Da, and that sort of stuff must be left behind. I'll admit that you have made some queer things come about. Tell me honestly, now, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... his galled soul. The knowledge that the whole situation was the result of his own doings kept his bitterness always at white heat. The expression of his thin, haggard face was sardonic, and the groups of simple children, accustomed to ask any stranger for stamps for their collections—a queer habit of the place—turned away from him when once they ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom was calling out, 'Gently! gently!' two strangers came up. 'What an odd thing that is!' said one: 'there is a cart going along, and I hear a carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.' 'That is queer, indeed,' said the other; 'let us follow the cart, and see where it goes.' So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried out, 'See, father, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... truth; I could cling to his arm, drink out of the same cup, set in the same chair, lay my head on the same piller, and yet, he might be millions of milds from me in sperit, 'round with other wimmen for all I knew. Queer, hain't it? ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... in with masonry, and had queer-shaped windows here and there; the floors were smoothed and covered with red clay beaten hard, whilst occasionally the walls received coats of fine red and yellow plaster, with stripes of darker colours. The larger caves were divided into several rooms, and in many there was ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... cooking some nice things and going to as many sheep camps as she could, taking with her the good things to the poor exiles, the sheep-herders. I liked the plan and was glad to agree, but I never dreamed I should have so lovely a time. When the queer old wooden clock announced two we ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... do that, my child!" They say, "You mustn't, dear!" I hope sometime I'll learn what's right, For now it seems so queer! ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got up and began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about the inside of Canute's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the better of her rage. One of the first things she noticed was the new black suit of clothes hanging on the wall. She was dull, but it did not take a vain woman long ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... kvarono. Quarter (district) kvartalo. Quarterly trimonata. Quartern kvarono, kvaronujo. Quartet kvarteto. Quartz kvarco. Quash (repress) premegi. Quash (annul) senigi, nuligi. Quaver trilo. Quay surbordo, bordmarsxejo. Queen regxino. Queer stranga. Quell trankviligi. Quench (extinguish) estingi. Quench (thirst) kvietigi. Querulous malkontenta. Query demando. Query cxu? Quest sercxo. Quest informigxo. Question demando. Question demandi. Question (doubt) dubi. Questionable duba. Quibble ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... ago—before he was a parson, or married or anything! Such a good partner, really musical; a queer, dear fellow, devoted, absentminded, easily shocked, yet with flame burning ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Wind said nothing. He put a queer stick into a bag and gave it to the boy and told him to go back and lock his ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... one like him. Known him a long time. Sold him a parcel of machines for his Government. He's a queer old duck. Made me a proposition last night. Millions in it. Chucked up my job by cable right away. Sorry this morning, though. Like a dream. I wanted to hunt up a fellow who could put me wise on binnacles and charts and things like that. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... mysterious 'it' of influence and command. I've seen a great herd of elephants move in unison at a whispered word, and a dog will venture to death's door if a little, old ragged master bids him to do so. A queer relationship this! It has ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... bewildering assortment of queer-looking instruments, all scrupulously clean and highly polished, were two small brass lamps burning behind a long, narrow strip of transparent celluloid whereon was marked a minute gauge. On the edge of the table, before these lamps, was a switch, ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... minister." Sometimes these lots were a gift outright to the first settled preacher, in other townships they were set aside as glebes, or "ministry land" as it was called. It was a universal custom to build at once a house for the minister, and some very queer contracts and stipulations for the size, shape, and quality of the parson's home-edifice may be read in church-records. To the construction of this house all the town contributed, as also to the building ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... had removed from the opposite side of the street, and had just opened as a tailor's shop the queer old building known as the "Pantechnetheca," and the ever-youthful Mr. Holliday was at "Warwick House." The recollections of what the "House" was then makes me smile as I write. It had originally been two private houses. The one abutted upon the footway, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... bridge they found old iron-shops lighted by smoky lamps. She ran into them. She turned a corner and went into a shop in which queer stuffs were hanging. Behind the dirty panes a lighted candle showed pots, porcelain vases, a clarinet, and a ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... found in Quarles' Divine Emblems, book ii. emblem ii. Beyond all question, Quarles was a poet that needed not "apt alliteration's artful aid" to add to the vigour of his verse, or lend liquidity to his lines. Quarles is often queer, quaint, and querulous, but never ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... the herd. And they had such queer names for their places. Those in the lead were point men, those in the middle were swing men, and the one who brought up the rear was the drag man. Then there was the cook, who drove the wagon, and the wrangler, who took care of the horses—over one hundred and forty head. They call the band ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... queer about that whole affair," Marjorie agreed. "You remember Helen said that, if the Sans were insolent and supercilious when they came back to the Hall, it would mean they had had information beforehand and were sure of their ground. Well, they were very much like that. They acted as though ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... back through some of the caverns, sometimes stooping to get through and sometimes standing beneath domes thirty and forty feet high. And always that queer, mystical light, with exaggerated shadows and sometimes black darkness ahead, where could be heard the drip, drip, drip of water in invisible lakes. In time of siege the holders of this cave, with granaries filled and with herds ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... circumstances," she admitted. "And yet, he has a very queer way of absenting himself every now ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and it was the first thing the children saw when, after knocking three times and receiving no reply, one of them ventured to turn the handle and softly to open the door. The chop was on the end of a long table that ran down one side of the room. The table had images on it and queer-shaped stones, and books. And there were glass cases fixed against the wall behind, with little strange things in them. The cases were rather like the ones ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... when she met the keeper of the grocery at the corner of the court, for in spite of all her fine talk about false pride, she had not entirely banished it from her heart. Some queer ideas came into her head as she thought what she was doing. What would her grandfather, the rich Liverpool merchant, say, should he meet her then? Of course he would not know her; he would be ashamed of her. But she did not permit such ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... you never will. Isn't it queer how I always have a little girl provided for me? Marjorie is growing up and now I have this child, your niece, John, to be my little girl for a long time. I wonder what ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... lady, it is you!" she whispered, marveling much where her mistress got such a queer bonnet and cloak. "Let me help you take off your wrap. You look pale as ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... if he understood. "A queer country; I've been here before! Beautiful, bits of it; shining surf, yellow sands, and palms, but it plays some funny tricks with white men. About half of them at the factories get addled brains if they stay long. Believe in things the bushmen believe, ghosts and magic, and ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... the Watchman. The people I see passing along the road are all very much alike. Therefore, when I see anything queer, ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... penitents him, Sir. Faith, these Holy Churches run queer cargoes past his officers—or so they say;" and with another bow to the King, and one of equal courtesy to me, he turned away and mingled in the crowd that ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... HANS (aside.) Dat queer chap in der brown vig I'm sure is a gay deceiver, or he would not admire mine vife so much. I must have mine ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... meant. Two senses had been affected—touch and hearing—and I could not believe that I had been deceived. So, with a lighted candle, I went stealthily forth on my unpleasant journey into the upper regions of this queer ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... a distinct purpose in introducing these and other queer-eyed individuals while discussing the sense of sight. I wish to demonstrate through one or more of them the correlation of morphology, physiology, and psychology, as formulated in the first chapter of this work. This is one of the most important facts in the doctrine of evolution, and upon it ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... pond; Guinnepeg Pond was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute were very anxious that it should be called Crystalline Lake. It was here that the young folks used to sail in summer and skate in winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented good-for-nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vagabonds, who sawed a little wood or dug a few potatoes now and then under the pretence of working for their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every winter. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had every sort of adventure by land and sea before I acted with him at the Court. He had been midshipman, tea-planter, engineer, sheep-farmer, and horse-breeder. He had, to use his own words, "hobnobbed with every kind of queer folk, and found myself in extremely queer predicaments." The adventurous, dare-devil spirit of the roamer, the incarnate gipsy, always looked out of his insolent eyes. Yet, audacious as he seemed, no man was ever more nervous on the stage. On a first night ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... world of shifting lights, of queer, elusive, delightful absurdities, that La Fontaine has made the scene of the greater number of his stories. The stories themselves are for the most part exceedingly slight; what gives them immortality is the way they ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... say thus) had I been Pope, I had sooner canonised her than a goodly number that hath been. But I do ill to speak thus, seeing the holy Father is infallible, and acts in such matters but by the leading of God's Spirit, as saith the Church. Good lack, but there be queer things in this world! I saw once Father Philip screw up his mouth when one said the same in his hearing, and ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... don't," she answered. "I never saw it before last month. It's all that you say—picturesque and romantic enough. And queer! I believe ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... that Jemima was caught with his long face; but there's no accounting for tastes. My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought it looked queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself by leaving off his glasses, ha—ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... committing to memory. "They ain't nobody can say as I didn't. Ef I git pinched, that's my spiel to th' cops. It ain't kidnapin'; it's life-savin', that's wot ut is! I'm a-goin' back an' have a look at that place where I got 'im. Kind o' queer they left the kid out there in the buzz-wagon; mighty queer, now's I think of ut. Little house back from the road; lots o' trees an' bushes in front. Didn't seem to be no lights. He keeps talkin' about Chris'mas at his grandpa's. Folks must 'a' been goin' to take th' kid somewheres ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... head for comfort. She wore a simple little straight frock of some dark silk stuff, with beaded pockets and marvellous pleats and belts and straps in unexpected places, such as one sees in fashion-books, but not on young girls in the town of Sterling; and her hat was a queer little cap with a knob of bright beads, wonderfully becoming, but quite different from anything that Julia Cloud had ever seen before. Her movements were darting and quick like a humming-bird's; and she wore long soft suede gloves and tiny ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... repeated the colonel. "Well, that's a queer question to ask us. We've been saying where is ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... gave him a look of contemptuous surprise, and turning to another who lounged behind him with his hands in his pockets, said—"Tom, here's a gentleman as wants to know where he is: can you tell him?" The person addressed laughed, and gave Malcolm a queer look. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a church,—and with people hanging over the pews looking on,—and with mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with folded arms, or ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens |
