"Silly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of you, temper, laziness, gambling, and all. You got it in you to be something more than a tango lizard or a cigar-store bum, honey. It's only you 'ain't got the stuff in you to stand up under a five-hundred-dollar windfall and—a—and a sporty girl. If—if two glasses of beer make you as silly as they do, Jimmie, why, five hundred dollars would land you under the table ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... a silly idea, but it still haunted her and would not be shaken off. Granny Thomas was a very old woman who lived at Burnley Cove and was reputed to be something of a witch. That is, people who were not Sparhallows or Burnleys gave her that name. Sparhallows or Burnleys, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... author's relation to his parents is adapted directly from Shandy, since he here possesses an incapable, unpractical, philosophizing father, who determines upon methods for the superior education of his son; and a simple, silly mockery of a mother. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Spicer grinned, and Mr. Pile looked as though he were about to be sick. How was it that a set of gentlemen, who generally knew their business so well as did the political leaders at Percycross, had got themselves into the same boat with a man silly enough to ask such ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... silly in a thing like that, though? I'd rather wear an ordinary length of stovepipe. That'd be durable, anyway. I wonder what Brown sent it for. I thought he knew a joke when he ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... silly. If he let one of us out and didn't let him back how could we both be here now? I don't want to cast any reflections on General What's-His-Name's intellect, but I should think he might figure that out for himself. Come around in the morning and we ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... in her innocent glee,— "What a fool of yourself with the whistle you'd make! For only consider how silly 'twould be To sit there and whistle for ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... said quick and shaky; 'it was silly of me. I only thought——' Well, she was tremblin' with cold or somethin', and kind of near cryin', too—one of them women that wears themselves out by botherin' to be good, and if they are good, botherin' about what ought to be done ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... simplicity of nature. Like many of his predecessors, he had a habit of making long speeches to prisoners on their conviction; but his intention was to help them to a better mode of life, not to aggravate their feelings by silly or coarse remarks. This habit, however, led him occasionally into enunciating principles which rather astonished his friends. In a murder case he found that the woman killed was not the wife of the prisoner but his mistress, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... put a box away for you in case you wanted it," Seldon continued. "Don't expect much. It's a silly piece, and I've a silly part, and I'm very bad in it. You must come around to supper, and tell me where I'm bad in it, and we will talk ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... time for sentiment, McKay. I have known Miss Waring three years; you, perhaps three weeks. I tell you solemnly that if she has tempted you to 'run it' down there to see her it is simply to boast of a new triumph to the silly pack by whom she is surrounded. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... other one, and so the wolf, like Lord Ullin, is "left lamenting."[114] M. Berenger-Feraud thinks this version somewhat analogous to a fable in his French collection of popular Senegambian Tales,[115] of the Clever Monkey and the Silly Wolf, of which, as it is short, I may offer a free ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... want to be bothered when his head's full of his specimens and he's thinking about nothing else but classifying and numbering and labelling! He'd laugh, and call it a silly trifle, and tell us to ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... to do with it, for after the dear man was gone a pipe an' a plug of the nasty stuff was found under 'is piller, so I can't stand it; an' what's more, Mr Crossley, I won't stand it! Just think, sir, 'ow silly it is to put a bit of clay in your mouth an' draw smoke through it, an' then to spit it out again as if you didn't like it; as no more no one does on beginnin' it, for boys only smoke to look like men, an' men only smoke because they've got up the 'abit an' can't 'elp it. ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... crowned by Persuasion. And Apollo and Artemis, Athene and Hercules, are standing by, and at the end of the platform Amphitrite and Poseidon, and Selene apparently urging on her horse. And some say it is a mule and not a horse that the goddess is riding upon; and there is a silly tale about this mule. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang like the cut of a knife when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain silly fastidiousness on my part, but it persisted in spite of me, and I merely ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... "you're as bad as the silly people who call killing things cruel! I wouldn't have thought ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... end—a poor devil. He would not have liked to stand in his shoes. Men were not evil, after all. He did not like his sleek hair, his queer way of standing at right angles, with his nose in the air, and glancing along his shoulder at you. No. On the whole, men were not bad—they were only silly ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... there with his sleeves rolled up, making himself mightily at home, chucking wheat and wool and cotton and sugar and stuff out of the hold, slewing it, hoisting it, and letting it down plunk onto France! The boys in khaki were on trains already. He could hear the silly, piping screech of the French locomotives. His mind was half numbed, but he hoped that all this would encourage those French people and remind them that before Uncle Sam rolled down his sleeves again, he intended to bat out a ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Look [keenly], fix thy glance sharply, especially if it be a girl. When she is half-frightened, she will tell you much without knowing it. When thou shalt have often done this thou wilt be able to twist many a silly girl like twine around thy fingers. Soon thy eyes will look like a snake's, and when thou art angry thou wilt look like the old devil. Half the business, my dear, is to know how to please and flatter and allure people. When a girl has anything ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... "Don't be silly!" exclaimed Betty, stilling the wild beating of her own heart by the reflection that she must be brave for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... "I do like 'em a bit noisy and silly," he admitted. "That sort is so—so gemuthlich, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... looking into a deep pit in your dream, you will run silly risks in business ventures and will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... neatly turned down, her dressing gown and slippers laid out, the shaded lamps shining on the gold and ivory of her dressing table, she was conscious of a sudden homesickness. Homesickness for her bare little room in the camp barracks, for other young lives, noisy, chattering, often rather silly, occasionally unpleasant, but young. Radiantly, vitally young. The great house, with its stillness and decorum, oppressed her. There was no ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... think I'm big enough to take care of myself?" Lane asked, with a little laugh. "Besides, there's an American Consul here, and plenty of English witnesses who saw the whole thing. Can't think why they're trying on such a silly game." ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... terms of Euclid. If you do a faulty proof by superposition and haven't remembered the theorem rightly, you can go on saying, 'Lay AB along DE' till all's blue and you'll never make C coincide with F. In the same way Mr. Philip can blether to his silly heart's content and he'll never prove that I'm a bold girl. Me, Ellen Melville, who cares for nothing in the world except the enfranchisement of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... like it, of course," she said, "Horace fairly simpers with pleasure while he sits and holds her hand. But a woman doesn't impose on other women so easily. It's silly." ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a wild speech with action all is wild - The children's leader, and himself a child; He spins their top, or, at their bidding, bends His back, while o'er it leap his laughing friends; Simple and weak, he acts the boy once more, And heedless children call him Silly Shore. ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... keyboard carefully before commencing her exercises. I struggled bravely against this unjust ostracism; but all in vain. I was so unlike these other girls in character and disposition, and I had, moreover, been guilty of a great imprudence. I had been silly enough to show my companions the costly jewels which M. de Chalusse had given me, but which I never wore. And on two occasions I had proved to them that I had more money at my disposal than all the ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... accustom ourselves to think always with propriety in little things as well as in great, and neither be too solicitous of our dress in the parlor nor negligent because we are at home. I think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or silly letter to you, as one in a bad hand or upon coarse paper. Familiarity ought to have another and a worse name, when it relaxes in its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... again! If you will not mind what I say about your silly fears, you shall hear from the pastor how wicked they are. I see him yonder, in the garden. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... babe at the battle, silly!" cried the young woman with a chuckle. "S'pose he were only twenty, then he couldn't be less than ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Oh, it's silly to tell; but sometimes I wonder whether it wouldn't help you a little, at the same time. I'd love to feel it did; you have been so good to me. I know you worry about Allyn. You watch him as a cat watches a mouse, and you always seem to understand his queer ways and know just how to manage him. ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the final darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... their own cows, making their own butter, and performing tasks of household work that few of our farmers' wives would now condescend to take part in. Instead of despising these useful arts, an emigrant's family rather pride themselves on their skill in these matters. The less silly pride and the more practical knowledge the female emigrant brings out with her, so much greater is the chance for domestic ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... they got to her; and, only stopping to give the man a lecture, mamma picked up her silly little girl, and the procession moved off. First came Cy, as grave as a sexton; then the wheelbarrow with Poppy, white and limp and speechless, all in a bunch; then mamma, looking amused, anxious ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... who lived in the same house now, and who visited Dora's apartment at all hours, she was too silly and too deeply infatuated with her friend to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... remarked,—"She is free-handed enough! She gives what costs her nothing, and takes all she can get, and is, after all, a trollop, like the rest of us, Fanchon, who would be very good if there were neither men nor money nor fine clothes in the world, to tempt poor silly women." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... why? The lonely inhabitants of the desert of Chazy County don't need a daily—or a weekly—or a monthly. A semi-annual would about hit their gait, and be more than they deserve. So I've decided it's merely a silly way to spend money—and an easy way, too, I'll be bound. Oblige me by explaining this ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... winks her wicked old eyes. "She wants to marry her son to Teresa Ottolini. He's a poor silly little ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... No—only a silly girl would think that. Was I ever good? I'm sure I don't know. If I was a woman soon knocked it out ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... she clasps me all sudden in her arms and setting soft cheek to mine falls a-chiding me, yet kissing me full oft, calling me "silly," ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... humiliate Lucien by various aristocrats' sarcasms. Lili the religious thought it a charitable deed to use any means of enlightening Nais, and Nais was on the brink of a piece of folly. Francis the diplomatist undertook the direction of the silly conspiracy; every one was interested in the progress of the drama; it would be something to talk about to-morrow. The ex-consul, being far from anxious to engage in a duel with a young poet who would fly into a rage at the first hint of insult ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... that kind of thing!' said she, in an altered tone, her cheeks glowing; 'it is very silly of him to get himself talked about; but of course ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was so silly? When madre was talking to him last night, and when I was singing my pretty serenade, he heard nothing at all. He was thinking his ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... new red-brick houses, in which ribbon-looms were rattling behind long lines of window, alternating with old, half-thatched, half-tiled cottages—one of those dismal wide streets where dirt and misery have no long shadows thrown on them to soften their ugliness. Here, about half-past five o'clock, Silly Caleb, an idiot well known in Dog Lane, but more of a stranger in the Bridge Way, was seen slouching along with a string of boys hooting at his heels; presently another group, for the most part out ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... be surprised at his pouring out on me the reproaches of his silly tongue, against you, too, does he make objections worthy of shame. Is it base for me, with a false crime to have charged Palamedes, {and} honourable for you to have condemned him? But neither could {Palamedes}, the son of Nauplius, defend a crime so great, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... humour of the situation. He was uneasy and suspicious. Moreover, he was puzzled by this American girl, and he hated to be puzzled. She had social aspirations, of course; she cared nothing for decayed or reformed criminals, and this silly bazaar was only designed so that the ambitious girl could find her way into the county set. Then she would choose a husband, and nothing more would be heard of Merritt and Co. Henson had a vague notion that all American girls are on the look-out for English husbands ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... sometimes, but then he was Archie, and had a right to his bad humors; but with the boys and girls it was less endurable. It was, "Oh, you stupid old Matt! Of course it was all your fault;" or, "Mattie, you goose!" from Fred; or, "You silly child, Mattie" from her father, who found her a less amusing companion than Grace; and even Dottie would say, "Oh, it is only Mattie: I never care if she ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... your words brought to my mind! Have you not heard men and women, those who have outlived such glimpses of high things as nature ever sent them, making a jest of love in young lives, treating it, from the height of their wisdom forsooth, as a silly dream of boys and girls? If we ever live to speak or think like that, it will indeed be time to have done with the world. Even as I love you now, my heart's darling, I shall love you when years of intimacy are like some happy journey ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... of. It is true we were good friends, and had been such before I had yet made your acquaintance. But he was a man for whom I had a strong distrust, and that in spite of his swaggering airs and gallant speeches, fit to turn the head of some silly, vain girl who knew nothing ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... I acknowledge it? I acknowledge nothing in the will. But it is clear, from that document, that she presumes herself to be under his protection. It is manifest that that silly fool intended that she should be so. Now I am not the man to put up with this. I ask you once more, Mr. Bertram, will you tell me where ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... swept up and down, as if the green-room was a shell, and this glorious creature must burst it and be free. Meantime, the others saw a pretty actress studying her business; and Cibber saw a dramatic school-girl learning what he presumed to be a very silly set of words. Sir C. Pomander's eye had been on her the moment she entered, and he watched keenly the effect of Vane's eloquent eulogy; but apparently the actress was too deep in her epilogue for anything else. She came in, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... friendship reign between mine eyes and insomny; * Yet can my heart forget you not, nor tears can I restrain: You made me swear with many an oath my troth to hold for aye; * But when you reigned my bosom's lord you wrought me traitor bane: I loved you like a silly child who wots not what is Love; * Then spare the learner, let her not be by the master slain! By Allah's name I pray you write, when I am dead and gone, * Upon my tomb, This died of Love whose senses Love had ta'en: Then haply one shall pass that way who fire of Love hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... What bolting, tramping, and rushing would they not have made through the ranks of the astonished professors and students? The Anniversary set, for example, who sweep the pews of men, or, coming upon one forlorn, crush him as a boa does a sheep. Our silly little flock only laughed, colored, and retreated to the volantes, where they held a council of war, and decided to go visit some establishment where possibly better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... silly and send it away. I'll tell you the one fault of your character: you think too much of other people, and too little of yourself. Now, that is contrary to the scheme of nature. We are sent into the world to ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... cheek of James under this reproof. It is often the case that more shame is felt for a blunder than a crime. In this instance the lad felt a sort of mortification at having done what Mr. Carman was pleased to call a silly thing, and he made up his mind that if they should ever overpay him a thousand dollars at the bank, he should bring the amount to his employer, and let him do as he pleased with ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... see why you ask such silly questions," retorted the Lefthandiron. "What do we sit on? Why, you might just as well ask a dog what he barks with, or a lion what he eats his breakfast with—and that would be as stupid as ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... "Don't be silly," said Thistle, his voice sounding kind this time, and earnest. "It wasn't pleasant being invisible last year, but perhaps this year it will be. Take my advice, and try it. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... to exclaim, in that same letter to Spalatin, 'I think that at Rome they are all mad, silly, and raging, and have become mere fools, sticks and stones, hells and devils.' His remarks on this pamphlet, written in Latin, contain the strongest words that we have yet heard from his lips about the 'only means left,' and the 'short ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... not have coal, but we can have conferences. A conference is the most typically English thing that there is. The old Anglo-Saxons had them and called them moots. Why they called them a silly name like that, when "conferences" would have done just as well, one can't imagine; but they had their notions and stuck to them. They would have called Parliament a moot; in fact they did. They called it a moot of wise men. Sarcastic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... of Henry the Second were far better educated than the contemporaries of Francis the First. The public mind, through the elevating tendencies of schools fostered by royal bounty, was to a considerable degree emancipated from the thraldom of superstition. It repudiated the silly romanese, passing for the lives of the saints, with which the public had formerly been satisfied. It scrutinized minutely every pretended miracle of the papal churches and convents, and exposed the trickery by which a corrupt clergy sought to maintain itself in popular ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... that silly old Cadi, and my handsome Sheikh Sidi? I must see them before the inquiry,or they'll give Captain Kearney quite a false impression of ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... in a temper. He's a silly, stupid kind of a dog, and Mr. Giles said yesterday if he caught him chasing his sheep round the field, he would give him a good beating; and I hope he will, for he nearly chased ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... the terms of this document, on any interpretation of them, go far beyond the intentions expressed in what may be called the official preamble and in the new Committee's terms of reference. One of the clauses seems, with all deference to its august composers, to be merely silly. This is (1)(c) forbidding sub-division of securities. If a L10 share is split into ten L1 shares this operation cannot make the smallest difference to the supply of capital for essential industries or cause any drain on the Foreign Exchanges. ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... the civilized nations, from the time of great-great-great-grandfather Moses down to the time of President Buchanan, have used the precious metals for their standard of values; while your barbarians only, your silly Sandwich-islanders, your stupid troglodytes of interior Africa, your savage red men, have used for that purpose fish-bones, beaver-skins, cowries, strings of beads, or a lump of old rags. Q.E.D., then, on Paley's principles, the precious metals were meant by Divine Providence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... a foolish way. There was no pain then about dying, he thought with a pleased and remote surprise—only this silly smiling content. ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... and in the scuffle it was torn from the stick and I cried with vexation. One of the teachers, however, supplied me with another, which you may suppose I took good care of. Will the Americans never get over their silly jealousy with respect to the flying of foreign flags in their country? We Canadians are always pleased to see the Star Spangled Banner waving alongside the Union Jack, and hope it may ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... the rascal calling himself Sir Gilbert Galbraith!—the half-witted wretch his fool of a daughter insisted on marrying! Here he was, ubiquitous as Satan! And—bless his soul again! there was the minx, Jenny! looking as if the place was her own! The silly tears in her eyes too!—It was all too absurd! He had just been dreaming of his dead wife, and clearly that was it! he was ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... must confess, a very foolish as well as dangerous amusement. Nevertheless, the children seemed to be greatly delighted with the hideous faces they made. I pondered this subject a good deal, and thought that if little children knew how silly they seemed to grown-up people when, they make faces, they would not be so fond of doing it. In another place were a number of boys engaged in flying kites; and I could not help wondering that some of the games of those little savages should be so like to our own, although they had never ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal contradiction to the silly fiction, which is assiduously circulated by the fanatics who not only ought to know, but do know, that their assertions are untrue, that I have advocated the introduction of that experimental discipline which is absolutely indispensable ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... and put hand No. 2 softly on Foker's head, which was bent down kissing and weeping over hand No. 1. "Foolish boy?" she said, "it shall be loved as it deserves: who could help loving such a silly creature!" ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The moment my aunt was restored, she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured, but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... ninth Satire; where I think I have shewn clearly enough, that without any prejudice either to one's Conscience or the Government, one may think bad Verses bad Verses, and have full right to be tir'd with reading a silly Book. But since these Gentlemen have spoken of the liberty I have taken of Naming them, as an Attempt unheard-of, and without Example, and since Examples can't well be put into Rhyme; 'tis proper to say one word to inform ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... "Silly," said the master laconically, and for a time he was silent, marching on behind the men. "All comes of being sent on such dooty," he burst out with. "It isn't right to send gentlemen and officers to do such dirty work. I've been ashamed of myself ever since I've been on the cutter. Hallo! Here's ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... have. The queer thing is—I haven't, in a way. It will come over me sometimes, in the queerest places, at the oddest moments, that I am still that woman to whom such awful things happened, that I, playing my silly monkey-shines, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... eyes of the Goblin danced and twinkled in their caverns; a merry, careless laugh came bubbling forth as it answered, "I will not leave your shop, nor will you throw me from the window, nor yet kill me, Nick Baba. Why, you silly fellow, the sharpest tool on your bench cannot draw blood from me, and that blackened lapstone, if driven with all the force of your great arm through my seeming substance, would leave me sitting here still, not to mock, but to ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... is the best of fellows! When he came down here first, I laughed at him, and thought him the most silly molly of a chap I ever met. But he's so good-hearted and patient, and takes everything so well, and all the time so genuinely plucky as soon as he makes up his mind to face anything, that you ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... a great, strong, willing, kindly man—calm in the glory of a fearless heart, serene in your trust and belief in God, the Father of the world, and so sure of the justice of His providence that you go about your daily business free from those silly cares which ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... from a disorderly set of breakers at the foot of those disheveled sandhills instead of from the prim, prosy, domestic edge of Churchton—well, wouldn't the affair have been better set and better carried off? In such case it might have been picturesque and heroic, instead of slightly silly. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... do I talk nonsense of subduing passion?—I should say, when no other passion could surmount my love, I returned to visit her; and now I attempted the strangest project which ever entered into the silly head of a lover. This was to persuade Amelia that I was really in love in another place, and had literally expressed my meaning when I asked her advice and desired ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... they are, and there they run! The Black-a-moor enjoys the fun. They have been made as black as crows, Quite black all over, eyes and nose, And legs, and arms, and heads, and toes, And trousers, pinafores, and toys— The silly little inky boys! Because they set up such a roar, ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... it seemed a silly piece, but he spoke it to please Miss Amanda, and because it was a hit at Dick Hardman. To his surprise he received a roar of applause. After the supper, dancing began. Some of the cowboys got drunk. There were fights, two of which ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... "Silly child—and it is Jackson's day off. Just brush them up for her, Cecilia. When the children have gone this afternoon, I want you to see to the drawing-room; some people are coming in to-night, and there are fresh ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Relacion, Ms., cap. 8, 27. - Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms. It was only, however, the great and good princes that were thus honored, according to Sarmiento, "whose souls the silly people fondly believed, on account of their virtues, were in heaven, although, in truth," as the same writer assures us, "they were all the time burning in the flames of hell"! "Digo los que haviendo sido en vida buenos y valerosos, generosos con los Indios en les hacer mercedes, perdonadores ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... The same silly idea prevails with regard to race-equality. It is judged by a similarity to our own in matters of dress; or choice of foods; by inconsequential differences, rather than by an estimate of what a given race may contribute to the variety of human knowledge; and yet it is evident that nature aims ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... fashion were less studied, chlorosis would not be such a frequent complaint. This disease generally takes its rise from mismanagement—from Nature's laws having been set at defiance. I have heard a silly mother express an opinion that it is not genteel for a girl to eat heartily! Such language is perfectly absurd and cruel. How often, too, a weak mother declares that a healthy, blooming girl looks like a milk maid! It would be well if she ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... drawing-rooms are open every evening until the end of the month, and one meets there all the chic people who are delayed in Paris, or who stop here between two journeys. Madame Fontaine is a very amiable and influential old lady; she has a fancy for writers when they are good company. Do not be silly, but go and order yourself some evening clothes. By presenting you there, my dear fellow, I assure you, perhaps in fifteen years, a seat in the Academy. It is agreed! Get ready for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... They don't speak. Now, in women, you know, vices are controlled by vices— see Pope. The conspiracy you dread will be averted by the other faults of their character, their jealousy and their petulant tempers. Take my word for it, they are sparring at this moment; and that poor, silly Severne meditating and moderating, and getting scratched on both sides for trying ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the daughter of a farmer!" she declared. "Then I could wear pretty ribbons and go dancing and the boys would come courting me! As it is I have to spend all my time with funny old men and silly old women!" ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... "Don't be silly, Harold," she retorted. "You have kissed me so much now that my hair is all down, and my face must be a sight. Lips are what you are supposed to kiss with—you don't have to kiss with ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Uncle Win," wrote Betty, "and Cary could not have gone away, neither could he have brought home a strange woman. This was the only satisfactory ending. But I hope you will be awfully in love with each other and sweet—and silly and all that. I am sorry for Captain Hawthorne, for, Doris, he loved you sincerely, but your French cousin can console himself with an ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... nation, the government? Or, loving these, have you no love for the nearest public fraction of it, your own town and neighbors? Why, then, your love of the Stars and Stripes is the flattest, silliest idolatry; so flat and silly it is hardly worth chiding. Your patriotism is a patriotism for war only, and a country with only that kind is never long ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... eyes are just like the eyes of a dog that is hurt and wants so much to tell you something, and can't. I don't care what the newspapers say—and those men from the police station! I don't believe he is really bad. Now please don't smile and tell me I'm silly." ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... almost fifteen, when I overheard a young lady say I was growing pretty. I went to my mirror and spent some moments in unalloyed happiness and triumph. Then I thought, "Pretty face, the worms will eat you. All the prettiest girls I know are silly, but you shall never make a fool of me. Helen's beauty ruined Troy. Cleopatra was a wretch. So if you are pretty, I will be ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... you believe it? directly my father caught the sound of your name he turned round quite hastily, and, like a poor silly thing, I was so persuaded that every one must be as much affected as myself by the utterance of your name, that I was not surprised to see my father start, and almost tremble; but I even thought (though that surely must have been a mistake) ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his bedroom is one thing and a band of drunken Uhlans making for his women is another. Tom's nerves are racked with problems: How the dickens is he to steer his car and protect his women at the same time? And if it comes to a toss-up between his women and his wounded? You've got to stow the silly things somewhere, and every one of them takes up the place of ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... tried to keep his mind on the flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave below. He began to wonder if he would come to some underground body of water where he would be drowned; but he knew that was a silly thought. If the shaft had gone through subterranean reservoirs, the water of these would have run out, and before they reached the bottom of the shaft would ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... silly island also afloat?" he asked, "for it feels more like a ship than any other dry land ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... Truly, that is spoken like a king. Thou art a king, so thou wouldst prefer to lose thy head than that silly circle of gold that so foolishly sits upon it. But it is well. Thou art a king. Thou couldst not prefer otherwise. (He walks calmly ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... said: "Bevis, my darling, you have not drunk half enough of me yet, else you would never ask such silly questions as that. Why, those are like the silly questions the people ask who live in the houses of the cities, and never feel me or taste me, or speak to me. And I have seen ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... together in the tranquil twilight, and she had no longer reason to be anxious for the morrow, what pleasure would he have in the reflection that this was his doing—his—poor foolish Barnaby's; and in patting her on the cheek, and saying with a merry laugh, 'Am I silly now, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... it was that that brought Bill round, and the next moment Dodgy was on 'is back with a blow that nearly knocked his 'ead off. Charlie grabbed at Tom's watch and began to count, and after a little bit called out Time,' It was a silly thing to do, as it would 'ave stopped the fight then and there if it 'adn't been for Tom's presence of mind, saying it was two minutes slow. That gave Dodgy a chance, and he got up again and walked round Bill very careful, swearing 'ard at the ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... down at the fire, her lips still shaped in that firm, wise, and philosophical smile with which doctors and nurses—and indeed, sometimes, anybody who happens to be feeling pretty well himself—console, or exasperate, suffering humanity. "A very good thing the poor silly child did come to me!" That was the form her thoughts took. For although Dr. Mary Arkroyd was, and knew herself to be, no dazzling genius at her profession—in moments of candor she would speak of having "scraped through" her qualifying examinations—she had a high ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... such as few poets have possessed, a perfect facility and a perfect finish. Alone of poets of the period he rarely gives the impression of labouring a point. Compared with Martial, Seneca and Lucan, Statius and Juvenal are, at their worst, stylistic acrobats. But Martial, however silly or offensive, however complicated or prosaic his theme, handles his material with supreme ease. His points may often not be worth making; they could not be better made. Moreover, he has a perfect ear; his music may be trivial, but within its narrow ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... Claparon angrily, "that I am just the man to lend you a slap in the face. When a man is in trouble, it is no time to play silly jokes ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... silly young couple," the lawyer said. "I can only hope that as you grow older you will grow wiser. Well, you had better come up and have a talk with me about the assets your uncle ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... "Silly!" said Jimmie to her. "Don't you dare faint! Here, smell of this," and he picked some spearmint, and held it under his sister's nose, ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... their baptismal names, not for anything so silly. Ah! oh—I thought you said they were in bed: ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... and (greatest danger of all for one of his ardent nature) no winning enchantress or artful siren coaxed him to her cave, or lured him into her waters—haunts into which we know so many young simpletons are drawn, where their silly bones are picked and their ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... silly!" protested Dot. "What a good thing I came out when I did! Things seem to be at a rather low ebb with you. But cheer up! What's a few head of cattle when all's said and done? When once this rascal is laid by the heels, you'll make up quicker than you know. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "Put that silly thing down," I told him, as he ran up to me with his head lowered and that indescribably desperate look in his big frightened eyes. "If you're not a fool I can get you hidden," I told him. It reassured me to see that his knees ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... his mazed mind doth wish Some part, at least, of that brave wealth was his; But seeing empty wishes nought obtain, At night turns to his Mother's cot again, And tells her tales (his full heart over glad), Of all the glorious sights his eyes have had; But finds too soon his want of Eloquence, The silly prattler speaks no word of sense; But seeing utterance fail his great desires, Sits down in silence, deeply ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... intelligent report speak of things unless there was the highest degree of truth, and varied crimes of the worst character called, from a sense of decency, for an apology. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion—a worthy and appropriate religion for such morals. Some say that they worship the genitalia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their parent. I know not whether ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Princess mine, be light * On me, for Love hath robbed me of my reason's sight' 'Slaved me this longing and enthralled me love of you; * And clad in sickness garb, a poor and abject wight. I wont ere this to think small things of Love and hold, * O Princess mine, 'twas silly thing and over-slight. But when it showed me swelling surges of its sea, * To Allah's hest I bowed and pitied lover's plight. An will you, pity show and deign a meeting grant, * An will you kill me still forget not ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... and honest history of any country the historian should, that he may avoid overpraise and silly and mawkish sentiment, reside in a foreign country, or be so situated that he may put on a false moustache and get away as soon as the advance copies have been sent to ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... Dom's leavings. A series of proverbs represents him as making friends with members of various castes and faring ill or well in the process. Thus the Kanjar steals his dog, and the Gujar loots his house; on the other hand, the barber shaves him for nothing, and the silly Jolahaa makes him a suit of clothes. His traditions associate him with donkeys, and it is said that if these animals could excrete sugar, Doms would no longer be beggars. "A Dom in a palanquin and a Brahman on foot" is a type of society turned upside down. Nevertheless, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... you lose." Surely he could not be accused of selfishness in the matter, when, if Mr. Gorham were eventually dethroned by the directors, and he, Covington, crowned in his place, it would simply result in keeping the Consolidated Companies still in the family. And as for Gorham's silly threat to disintegrate the corporation—that was too absurd ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... trickling in a moonlit fountain! I only know it's like what I tried to put into my little Pandora—that it was like what Barrie was thinking when he let Peter Pan cry, 'I'm Joy! Joy! Joy!'—Even the Painter Boy, who has a silly pose that he hates music, used to hang around to hear her whistle—he pretended he was just looking at her so's he could paint her, but that didn't fool me—Listen, there's Nor' stumping up stairs now—he's awfully lame on these rainy days ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... she. "There! Just look at those silly orchids! Aren't they sights?" With that she snakes 'em out and tosses the wilted bunch careless over the veranda rail. "And now," she adds, "I must ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the fear into the silly brutes," said Harris, speaking calmly, although his own flesh was creeping just a little. "I suppose they've ripped their tether ropes to pieces. Well, we'll tie them down here, where they'll have company." And he led them back a short ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... nor Hussar is here! Ah, and stout horses, a proper relay belonging to Duke Choiseul, do stand at hay, but in the Upper Village over the Bridge; and we know not of them. Hussars likewise do wait, but drinking in the taverns. For indeed it is six hours beyond the time; young Bouille, silly stripling, thinking the matter over for this night, has retired to bed. And so our yellow Couriers, inexperienced, must rove, groping, bungling, through a Village mostly asleep: Postillions will not, for any money, go on with the tired horses; not at least without ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage[7-7] green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "No, you silly,—except that he'll never be president! I'm thinking about Blue Bonnet,—I was just going to tell you when she came in. I don't believe she intends to ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... looks like a queen; and she has a beautiful carriage." He laughed and said yes, she had money, and a good deal of influence in high places, but the women she knew were not the sort of people I would care about; and he finished by saying I was a silly child to go staring ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... dunce! How shamefully your guardian neglects your education! Never even heard of the Ellewomen? Why, they compose the most brilliant society all over the world. Iduna was a silly creature, with a large warm heart, and loved her husband devotedly; and in order to cure her of this arrant absurd folly she was carried away and shut up with the Ellewomen, very fair creatures always smiling sweetly. The more bitterly ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... girl, I think Belle stood very much in her own light. She is not rich, and if she would marry him she could have everything heart could wish. What a silly girl! You wouldn't catch me ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... "Silly," she said, tracing them gently with her finger tips, "I love every one of them, too," and she leaned over ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... precious jewel, and it is improved, not by books, but by looking here and there, above and below, everywhere and anywhere, as the butterflies and the birds do. Let us teach our children as nature teaches us. Let us burn our books and our schools. Do not drive our dear little ones to silly words and cruel numbers. It makes our heart bleed to see parents call their children from some pleasant game and shut ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... went on, "don't you remember that time I took you over to see my queer old maiden aunt, who's got the rheumatics so bad, and lives in the big house all alone with a colored woman, and all her silly pets,—cats, squawkin' crows she cares for like they might be humans; and with that big bulldog chained under ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... not believe that womanly women and manly men are most successfully made by way of silly, shoddy, sorry-for-themselves girlhoods, or lying, swaggering, loafing boyhoods; and it is the empty, the vulgar, the cheap, smart, trust-to-luck story, rather than the gory one, ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... that you silly child, returned Emily, but I am intruding upon school hours I fear, so if you will allow me Miss Leicester I will come for a chat ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... to have been the character of General Joseph Reed, from documents decidedly authentic—so authentic as to have led to their partial destruction, by his vain and silly descendants, who imagined that truth could be extinguished, while vanity was kindling a spurious flame to consummate an imaginery[TN] apotheosis, for one whose actual deeds consigned him to the keeping of the furies ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... to recount them, but the waiter had fled on his phantom slippers to Lord Chipendale, stranded, full length, upon a sofa and crying, in mournful tones: "Tchempegne!.. tchempegne!.." The cork flew with its silly noise, and nothing more was heard save the gusts of wind in the monumental chimney and the hissing click of the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... young fellow, Brown, paid his attentions in my despite, and in defiance of me. He perhaps considered me, on his part, as an oppressive aristocratic man, who made my rank in society, and in the army, the means of galling those whom circumstances placed beneath me. And if he discovered my silly jealousy, he probably considered the fretting me in that sore point of my character, as one means of avenging the petty indignities to which I had it in my power to subject him. Yet an acute friend of mine gave a more harmless, or at least a less offensive, construction to his attentions, which ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... bounding forward! Her silly heart leaps at the sight of the old place—and so in good truth does mine. What a pretty place it was—or rather, how pretty I thought it! I suppose I should have thought any place so where I had spent eighteen happy years. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... you know, are expected to go to the sea-shore or the Springs; and my sister and her two eldest daughters are so silly, as to fear that they will lose caste, if it is known that they could not go this season. Do ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... All this silly little world—all this quintessence of fashion and elegance, long out of date, all exhaled the acrid odour of rose-water and essence of ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... of silly mortals," said Verena, "Aunt Sophia is a fashionable lady, and fashionable ladies dine between ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... of absence to Murree was absolutely essential for my recovery, and a recommendation that I might be allowed to proceed immediately in anticipation of the leave being granted. So the next evening saw me start from Peshawur for Rawul Pindee, in a Dak Gharie, accompanied by my dog "Silly" and my Madrapee servant or "Boy." Onwards we sped at a gallop, the horses being changed every six miles, through Nowshera, the furnace; over the rapid and icy cold Indus by boat; past Fort Attock, the oven in which our soldiers are done to death; and Hussan Aboul of Lallah ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... will you make for me? Tell me how many bright golden prospects you will blot out for the silly ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero |
