"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Atlantis, or silly; so you'd have to learn their rules of politeness, which would strike you as silly. And you'd have to learn habits of living which would often amaze you; and if you were slow to adopt them, they'd class you as queer. Their ideas of joking would also be different from yours; and you'd slowly and awkwardly discover what ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... "Queer old party, Fitzpatrick; queerest I ever saw. You were right—not a crooked hair in his head. Glad I came. Of course I can't go down to his place—haven't got the time—but I bet you he'd be glad to see me if I did. ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... said Jock. "He says the other chauffeurs have an awful queer accent and it's all he can ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... yes, yes—I 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 of events. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... examination by her husband, herself, and their friends. But in spite of every effort it was impossible to discover the slightest analogy between the writing of the anonymous letters and the impressions left on the blotting-pad of the duke. The countess and her assistants in this queer task, therefore, came to the conclusion that they would have to ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Spencer replied, "but this white hen you admire so much is a queer creature. If her chickens are not all white, she will not ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... there was always something incongruous, and recurringly strange, in this queer link between a little country parish mentioned in Domesday Book and the big bustling ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... pretty fellows in Bristol are numbers, some Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome; And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous, They affect to believe neither ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... your best to mend me, and that's one thing that makes me sad. And the thought of Mr. Insall's another. In some ways it would have been worse to live—I couldn't have ruined his life. And even if things had been different, I hadn't come to love him, in that way—it's queer, because he's such a wonderful person. I'd like to live for the child, if only I had the strength, the will left in me—but that's gone. And maybe I could save her from—what I've ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... have," Bob answered. "I don't remember it, though. Everything looks queer and different in the storm. It's a regular squall. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... to look at it. Who ever heard of a tree being lonely? You have a great many queer fancies, but they won't flourish here. Glasgow is given up to business; it has no ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... not perpetually engaged in this rather exhausting pursuit I was, at any rate, intrigued. Pengard, who is also Sylvester, and yet is neither the one nor the other, may be too much for your saner moments of credulity. But Mr. STRAUS tells his queer story so plausibly and with so light a touch that even though you may affect to scoff at his dashing improbabilities you cannot escape their attraction. Indeed Mr. STRAUS'S adventure into fields hitherto strange to him has been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... lit a cigarette, and standing before the fire began to smoke. "Would you mind telling me about him? I never met him, but of course I'd read a lot about him, and I can't help feeling interested. It was a queer thing." ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... who was her last lover's guardian; a queer sort of fellow, it would seem. Musette said to him, 'My dear sir, before definitely giving you my hand and going to the registrar's I want to drink my last glass of Champagne, dance my last quadrille, and embrace for the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... her hand upon her torn dress, and, as she did so, a drop of blood stained the lily. She tried to get it off, but all her efforts were fruitless. The crimson spread and darkened until half of the white petals were dyed. She noted, with a queer lump in her throat, that the lily was the same colour as the waxen heart that lay under the glass case in the house she ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Lindsley" lived in a queer cabin on the Pomme de Terre River. If you should ever ride over the new Northern Pacific when it shall be completed, or over that branch of it which crosses the Pomme de Terre, you can get out at a station which will, no doubt, be called for an old settler, Gager's Station; and if you would ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... the reeds and clover— "What funny old markings: look here, They have scrawled the rocks all over: It's just where the door was: how queer!" ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... come home with her head full of queer-fangled notions which would be out of keeping with our institutions. Just the reason why she shouldn't be chosen. We are greatly troubled as to the result, dear, for though we expect to win, the prejudice of some men against voting for a woman under any circumstances ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... American, and had had some education; and this thing coming upon him, seemed completely to break him down. He had a feeling of the degradation that had been inflicted upon him, which the other man was incapable of. Before that, he had a good deal of fun, and mused us often with queer negro stories,—(he was from a slave state); but afterwards he seldom smiled; seemed to lose all life and elasticity; and appeared to have but one wish, and that was for the voyage to be at an end. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... he used to be a stunner, and a safe and steady runner, And we trusted him, most confident, for landing us the Stakes Now, what can the cause of this be? He's a-looking queer and quisby; And his off fore leg seems shaky, and the rest ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... been the heat. Johnny stood up, raking his hair, turned to the door and back again, and then, after an impatient gesture, took up his fiddle and raised it to his shoulder. Then the queer thing happened. He said afterwards, under conditions favourable to such sentimental confidence, that a cold hand seemed to take hold of the bow, through his, and—anyway, before he knew what he was about he had played the first bars of "When First I Met Sweet ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... from what I read, they never followed his movements that morning!" observed Glassdale. "Queer business altogether! Isn't there some reward offered, doctor? I heard of some placards or something, but I've never seen them; of course, I've only ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... next alcove we saw the golden thigh of Pythagoras, which had so divine a meaning; and, by one of the queer analogies to which the virtuoso seemed to be addicted, this ancient emblem lay on the same shelf with Peter Stuyvesant's wooden leg, that was fabled to be of silver. Here was a remnant of the Golden Fleece, and a sprig of yellow leaves that resembled ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... puzzles me," said the stranger. "I was getting out of the way of a queer old chap in the road, and I ran over something that seemed only an old scroll of paper; but the shock was so great that I was thrown, and I fancy I was for a few moments unconscious. Yet I cannot see any other obstruction ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... 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, ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... did you find business as you came along? Brisk, I dare say. And yet there is a something, a sort of a something; didn't it strike you, sir, there was a something? A deal of queer paper ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... problem and about Post-Impressionism; I want now to consider that metaphysical question—"Why do certain arrangements and combinations of form move us so strangely?" For aesthetics it suffices that they do move us; to all further inquisition of the tedious and stupid it can be replied that, however queer these things may be, they are no queerer than anything else in this incredibly queer universe. But to those for whom my theory seems to open a vista of possibilities I willingly offer, for what they ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... having to go and speak to his uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said many foolish things about Featherstone's property, and these had been magnified by report. Fred felt that he made a wretched figure as a fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates at his bidding. But—those expectations! He really had them, and he saw no agreeable alternative if he gave them up; besides, he had ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... "gorgeous" I languish in vain, And I pine for a "love"—and a "dear." Oh! why did I vow to be plain— In my speech? It sounds awfully queer! Stop! "Awfully" is not allowed. Though it will slip out sometimes, I own. Oh, I might as well sit in my shroud, As ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... about Mr. Peyton, Mrs. Brown and I," he began, coming frankly to the point at once. "He had a queer visitor to-day, one who has just been coming lately and who always leaves him upset. I wonder if you saw him, a thin man with a brown face and a kind of a way with him, somehow, in ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... the muleteer, wrinkling all the queer puckered leather of his visage in the strong light which streamed out as the great door opened. A most dignified Venetian senator, in the black and radiant linen of the time, came forth to meet me, and with the utmost respect ushered me within. In my campaigning dress and ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... outside, should know. I began to wonder how it leaked out, for I understood that it was a strictly private affair. I asked Mr. Murtha and he told Mr. Dorgan. Mr. Dorgan at once guessed that there had been something queer. He looked about his rooms there, and, sure enough, they found the detectaphone concealed in the wall. I can't tell any more," she added, facing Carton and using her bewitching eyes to their best advantage. "I can't ask you to shield Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Murtha. They ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... affectionately invoked, at length came stumbling into the room; a queer, shambling, ill-made urchin, who, by his stunted growth, seemed about twelve or thirteen years old, though he was probably, in reality, a year or two older, with a carroty pate in huge disorder, a freckled, sunburnt visage, with a snub nose, a long chin, and two peery grey eyes, which had a droll ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 rapids to, of—So Sir—So ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... . I had a charming hour with the Brownings yesterday; more fascinated with her than ever. She talked lots of George Sand, and so beautifully. Moreover she silver-electroplated Louis Napoleon!! They are lodging at 58 Welbeck Street; the house has a queer name on the door, and ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the spearhead was ready for the finishing touches. So Straightshaft dropped his hammer-stone and picked up a queer little tool. He called it a flaker, and he used it to press off tiny ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... Churchyard, where the graves were warm With sunset still, and the blunt carven stones Lengthened their homely shadows, out and out, To Everlasting. Then I plucked up heart, Seeing the footprints of that mighty Masque Along the pebbled path. A queer thought came Into my head that all the world without Was but a Masque, and I was creeping back, Back from the Mourner's Feast to Truth again. Yet—I grew bold, and tried the Southern door. 'Twas locked, but held no key ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... should she not go down to him? He would know what was best for her to do. At the foot of the steps below the Waterloo Column she stood still. All was quiet there and empty, the great buildings whitened, the trees blurred and blue; and sweeter air was coming across their flowering tops. The queer "fey" moony sensation was still with her; so that she felt small and light, as if she could have floated through a ring. Faint rims of light showed round the windows of the Admiralty. The war! However lovely ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had enjoyed her father's absolute confidence. Like many others of his class, there seemed to be so little upon which to comment in his appearance, so little room for surmise or analysis in his quiet, negative features, his studiously low voice, his unexceptionable deportment. Yet for a moment a queer sense of apprehension troubled her. Was it true, she wondered, that she did not like the man? She banished the thought almost as soon as it was conceived. The very idea was absurd! His manner towards her had always been perfectly respectful. He seemed equally devoid ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... when she chose Mr. Love, Found nothing but sorrow await her; She now holds in wedlock, as true as a dove, That fondest of mates, Mr. Hayter. Mr. Oldcastle dwells in a modern-built hut, Miss Sage is of madcaps the archest; Of all the queer bachelors Cupid e'er cut, Old Mr. Younghusband's ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? God knows they make enough as it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's no lie. Folks—they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin' fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... hair, which was long and thick, was also tied to the ground. I felt several slender threads over my body. Fastened in this way, I could only look upwards, and, as the sun came out and shone in my eyes, this was very uncomfortable. I heard a queer noise about me, but could see ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... understand you," said the other, folding the newspaper that he held and putting it into his pocket. "You writers are a queer lot, anyhow. Come, tell me what I have done or omitted in this matter. In what way does the pleasure that I get, or might get, from your work depend ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... never been in so queer a place before. He was a lively, active city boy, but the closest he had ever seen an airship was a distance away and five hundred feet up in the air. Now, with big wonder eyes he stared at the strange appearing machine. His fingers moved restlessly, like a street-urchin surveying an ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... singular, peculiar, unusual, unique, strange, quaint, extraordinary, queer, eccentric, whimsical, freakish, baroque, fantastic, nondescript, abnormal, bizarre, erratic, unconventional, curious, capricious; extra, remaining, additional, redundant, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... "It was a queer place," said my little companion, looking up in my face with a droll expression—"a sort o' place that, when once you had gone into it, you was sure to wish you hadn't. Talk o' the blues, sir; I ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... Fire Dogs—they are queer, indeed; They seem to come of a three-legged breed. They have no tails, their bark is on their back; They hunt in couples, never in a pack. The day's work over, 'tis a pleasant sight To find them waiting by the ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... since we were children. You might think that I... I understand, quite understand. I could not have done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but it's splendid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's queer," he added after a pause, "that you should have suspected me!" He began to laugh. "Well, what of it! I hope we'll get better acquainted," and he pressed Boris' hand. "Do you know, I have not once been in to see the count. He has not sent ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... at Paris and in the Court in ridicule of the ludicrous sayings of the wife of Marshal Lefebvre, and a collection could be made of her queer speeches, many of which are pure fabrications; but a volume would also be necessary to record all the acts by which she manifested ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Look how she jaws when Mary Ellen spends her wage on finery. I'll bet Lucy was a beauty. And she's dead too, you can bet, and Charles was her lover, and likely he's dead too. 'Bide the time,' eh? You see they're waitin' around yet—somewheres. Isn't it queer?" ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... and listening so reverently to father's epigrams. Then, besides, I had nobody but my sisters to talk to. Oh, you can't imagine how many attractive men I see every day in New York—and I should like to know them all—and many do look at me as though they would like it, too; but Mr. Wayne is so queer, and so are father and Mr. Briggs—about my speaking to people in public places. They have told me not to, but I—I—thought I would," she ended, smiling. "What harm can it do for me to ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... advise caution towards Mr. P. I am precisely of your opinion about him, that he is a "queer stick," and while I advised him carefully in reference to his own undertakings, I took no ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... stood in the shadowy hall, as near as she dared venture, and listened, with her head thoughtfully on one side. Betty in her note about the wedding had said she was going to be married to Bessemer. But Bessemer didn't sound like a bridegroom. Had Bessemer run away then, or what? But some things looked queer. She remembered that Aileen had spoken as if Herbert was the bridegroom, but she had taken it for a mere slip of the tongue and thought nothing of it. When Aileen next came that way, she asked her if she happened to have got hold of one of the invitations, and Aileen, with ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... can let people come in again in a minute. He's nearly finished his tea. But he must be left alone when the sun sets. He's very queer at that time of day, and if he's worried I won't answer ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... for one thing, for she had taken the opportunity to grow prodigiously, as sick children often do. Her head ached at times, her back felt weak, and her legs shook when she tried to run about. All sorts of queer and disagreeable feelings attacked her. Her hair had fallen out during the fever so that Papa thought it best to have it shaved close. Katy made a pretty silk-lined cap for her to wear, but the girls ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... queer gamble this, take it through and back, and it's remarkably like roulette in being a game where a system doesn't pay. As long as we worked haphazard we did wonders. As soon as we tried to do a rational thing, and make that harbour at Ciudadella, we got euchred. Well, I dare say we both ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... said Tom—"one of those courageous gentlemen who can queer the daylights, tap the claret, prevent telling fibs, and pop the noddle into chancery; and a devilish good hand he is, I can assure you, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... out to the old oak and see if all the turkeys air up. Be sure and count 'em—and take Jubal (the youngest) 'long with you. If you see your pa tell him I say to look at the brindle cow. She acted mighty queer at milkin', and I reckon she'd better have a little bran mash—Sairy Jane," turning suddenly upon her eldest daughter, "if you eat another one of them peanuts I'll ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... willow-trees went out to meet them. As a mark of special distinction the Emperor sent his own horse for Hsuean Chuang to ride on, and the pilgrims were escorted with royal honours into the city, where the Emperor and his grateful Court were waiting to receive them. Hsuean Chuang's queer trio of converts at first caused great amusement among the crowds who thronged to see them, but when they learned of Sun's superhuman achievements, and his brave defence of the Master, their amusement was changed into ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... endeavour, certainly, admiral, to do my best. Of course, living in the town, as I have for many years, I know some very nice people as well as some very queer ones." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... [says another witness]. I felt the need of some ceremony, and I think others felt the need of it too. There were little half-articulate attempts, in the darkness, of men trying to show what they felt—a whisper or two—in the queer jargon that is growing up between the two armies. An English sentry mounted upon the fire-step, and looked out into the darkness beside the Frenchman, and then, before the Frenchman stepped down, patted him on the shoulder, ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to enlist to please you, nor ma aunt, neither.' He rose slowly and picked up his shabby jacket. 'But, by ——, I'll enlist to please masel'!' He held out his hand. 'There it is, if ye want it, Macgreegor. . . . Ha'e ye a match? Weel, show a licht. Is ma nose queer-like?' ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... merry laugh, but not pleasant in Jane's ears. "The idea of US trying to induce young ladies and young gentlemen with polished finger nails to sit round in drawing-rooms talking patronizingly of doing something for the masses! You've got a very queer notion of us, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... was right for Polchester to have an artist and to stick him up in the very middle of the town as an emblem of taste and culture. Soon, however, he began to decline. It was whispered that he drank, that his morals were "only what you'd expect of an artist," and that he was really "too queer about the Cathedral." One day he told Miss Dobell that the amount that she knew about literature would go inside a very small pea, and he was certainly "the worse for liquor" at one of Mrs. Combermere's tea-parties. He did not, however, give them time to drop him; he dropped himself, gave ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... habitants were not of pure blood. The French seldom took women with them into the wilderness. They were traders, trappers, and soldiers. They married Indian wives, untrammelled, as President Roosevelt says, "by the queer pride which makes a man of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinned woman his wife, though anxious enough to make her his concubine." [Footnote: Roosevelt, "Winning of ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... the devil with a man's nerves. I'd got the beds fixed up on the floor, and the billies on the fire—I was going to make some tea, and put a piece of corned beef on to boil over night—when Jim (he'd been queer all day, and his mother was trying to hush him to sleep)—Jim, he screamed out twice. He'd been crying a good deal, and I was dog-tired and worried (over some money a man owed me) or I'd have noticed at once that there was something unusual ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... expected from Richmond, a meeting having been had there also, at which Mr. Wythe, it is said, was seated as moderator; by chance more than design, it is added. A queer chance this for the chancellor of ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... critter in the wagon is a man,' said Hopkins, looking as intently in the same direction. 'It seems to me,' he added, a moment later, 'that there's somebody else a-sit-ting alongside of him, either a dog or a boy. Wal, naow, ain't that queer?' ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... begins an amusing sketch of our city with the words, "Queer old Quebec,—of all the cities on the Continent of America, the quaintest." He concludes his humorous picture by expressing the wish that it may remain so without being disturbed by the new-fangled notions of the day. Some one has observed ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... may the wisdom o' the country-side be puttin furth the noo?' asked David in a tone of good-humoured irony. 'Weel, as I hear, Mistress Comrie's been to Embro' for a week or twa, and's come hame wi' a gey queer story concernin the young laird—awa oot there whaur there's been sic a rumpus wi' the h'athen so'diers. There's word come, she says, 'at he's fa'en intil the verra glaur o' disgrace, funkin at something they set him til: na, he wudna! And they ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... queer lot," laughed the happy schemer, as he woke next day to his closing labors at Geneva. "Now, for my check cashing, then, Monsieur Francois, a farewell visit to Miss Euphrosyne, and a secret council with the fair Genie," He ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... 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 ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... reason for my remarks. Lord, in what a medley the origin of cultivated plants is. I have been reading on strawberries, and I can find hardly two botanists agree what are the wild forms; but I pick out of horticultural books here and there queer cases of variation, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... she heard the chuck-chuck of the loaded wagon. Far ahead she heard some one whistling a high, sweet melody which had the queer, minor strains of some old folk song. For just a few bars she heard it, and then it was stilled, and the road dipping steeply before her seemed very lonely, its emptiness cooling her brief anger to a depression that had held her too often in its grip since that terrible night ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... first," said old Widgeon, who had opened his eyes suddenly and looked at them both. "I was a bit queer, but I'm right enough now. Who talks ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... sent me is a queer book. It is like a watercourse with an insufficient number of buoys, so that one might run aground at any moment. But I pricked the chart and found calm waters. Only, I couldn't do it again. The devil may crack these nuts which are rotten inside when one has managed to break ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... blockade of my faculties was raised, the illusion, never more than half complete, was dispelled. My 'great mission' was not fully developed at the first session; but when I had become perfectly clairaudient (I never became clairvoyant), and could dispense with the pencil, a queer mixture of metempsychosis and Parseeism was poured into my ear. It ran somewhat as follows: The two beings first created were, a Lucifer predominant in love, and a Lucifer predominant in intellect; ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be any inquest. But there's something queer in it. You see, Priam Farll was never in England. Always abroad; at those foreign hotels, wandering ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... let him call me that. But they are all for short names, one syllable—he is Phil, and Mariamne, well at home they call her Jew—horrible, isn't it?—because she was called after some Jewess; but somehow it seems queer when you see her, so fair and frizzy, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... much. Now for the commission you gave me. I'd rather it had been anything else, for I think I'm the last man in the world for duty where women are concerned. That reads queer, but you know what I mean. I mean that women puzzle me, and I'm apt to take them too literally. If I found your wife, and she wasn't as straightforward as you are, Jack Gladney, I'd as like as not get things in a tangle. You know I thought it would be better to let things sleep—resurrections are ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... way. We'll cut out the fact that you took an oath, and that you're breaking it. That's up to you. We'll get down to results. When you reach home, if you can't tell why you left the army, the folks will darned soon guess. And that will queer everything you've done. When you come to sell your stuff, it will queer you with the editors, queer you with the publishers. If they know you broke your word to the British army, how can they know you're keeping faith with them? How can they believe anything you tell them? Every 'story' you write, ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... a dry, emaciated man, with restless, intelligent eyes, came in and reported that Shoustova was imprisoned in some queer, fortified place, and that he had received ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... said the boastful young man, "you mustn't forget that I am a lawyer and have to meet very queer people." ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... front, overlooking the street from the third story of the building. Of the bedchamber there is but little to say, except that it contained a bed, a washstand, a mirror, two straight-backed chairs and a clothes-press. Droom went out for his bath—every Saturday night. The "living-room," however, was queer in more ways than one. In one corner, on a chest of drawers, stood his oil stove, while in the opposite corner, a big sheet-iron heater made itself conspicuous. Firewood was piled behind the stove winter and summer, Droom lamenting that one could not safely discriminate ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Dora's foot was now quite well enough to have gone to the North Pole or the Equator either. They said they did not mind the first time, because they like to keep themselves clean; it is another of their queer ways. And they said they had had a better time than us. (It was only a clergyman and his wife who called, and hot cakes for tea.) The second time they said they were lucky not to have been in it. And perhaps they were right. But let me ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... The painter watched her,—a queer expression on his face,—as he returned curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad—when you have never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... we attempt to make the oblique arch a segment only of a large circle, as in the dotted line at 94, so as to keep it the same level as the other without being so flat at the top, the crown of the arch is safer, but this can only be done at the cost of getting a queer twist in the line of the oblique arch, as shown at D, Fig. 93. The like result of a twist of the line of the oblique arch would occur if the two sides of the space we are vaulting over were of different lengths, i.e. if the vaulting space were otherwise than a square, as long as we ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... mathematical field. He did very important work in cybernetic theory, but he dropped it several years ago—said that the human mind couldn't be worked at from a mechanistic angle. He studied various branches of psychology, and eventually dropped them all. He built several of those queer psionic machines—gold detectors, and something he called a hexer. He's done a ...
— Suite Mentale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... eyes and sat up, for her voice sounded very queer and far away. He saw that she too was sitting up, her hands folded under her chin. "Mother always had a party for me," she ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... said, 'when I sees you first I sez, "There's the filly for my money;" and so you was. And, by Criky! you and me hevn't reached the last jump yet—no, sir. Give me a kiss. . . . Thar—that's werry "bon," as them queer-spoke Frenchies would say. M' dear, I hev some nooz ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Carl, with a broad smile. "It ish wery queer! Ven it sounded so much as if you said shtep! so I shtepped just as fast as ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... trying to bring young folks altogether to their modes of thinking, it was well for both to yield something. That was the third time Richard had heard his mother's ways alluded to; first by Mrs. Jones, who called them queer; second, by Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, who, for Ethie's sake had also dropped a word of caution, hinting that his mother's ways might possibly be a little peculiar; and lastly by good Aunt Barbara, who signalized them as different ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... my father and the cat went down to the docks to the ship. A night watchman was on duty, so while the cat made loud queer noises to distract his attention, my father ran over the gang-plank onto the ship. He went down into the hold and hid among some bags of wheat. The ship sailed early ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett
... not quite satisfied. You and Clara will perhaps take me for a gloomy dreamer, but nohow can I get rid of the impression which Coppelius's cursed face made upon me. I am glad to learn from Spalanzani that he has left the town. This Professor Spalanzani is a very queer fish. He is a little fat man, with prominent cheek-bones, thin nose, projecting lips, and small piercing eyes. You cannot get a better picture of him than by turning over one of the Berlin pocket-almanacs[4] and looking at Cagliostro's[5] portrait ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... with 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, ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... 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 he was! ...
— The Observers • G. L. Vandenburg
... that that don't seem so queer to me as it used to? It seems all right fur pertickler friends to call me Jim, but clo'es is what puts the Mister into a man. I felt it comin' when I looked into the glass. Says I to myself: 'Jim, that's Mr. Fenton as is now afore ye. Look ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... know. I suppose so. Does seem queer, though, to chop chaps with swords and pitch 'em into the water. Rather an awkward place to come down, wouldn't ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... therefore impress it upon the young that they should regard their parents as in God's stead, and remember that however lowly, poor, frail, and queer they may be, nevertheless they are father and mother given them by God. They are not to be deprived of their honor because of their conduct or their failings. Therefore we are not to regard their persons, how they may be, but the will of God who has thus created ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... carpet as they walked under the dim arches to the front seat. His aunts and his uncles and his brother's big friends from the training camp seemed suddenly to appear out of the shadows and silently fill the front rows. In the queer light he kept recognizing familiar faces that smiled and nodded at him in the dimness. Even Miss Shake and Nannie looked queer in the pew behind. Nannie was dressed in her "day-off" clothes. She ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... 'Yale Coll.,' 'Harvard Coll.' Next he calls to mind two blue-covered books, turned from their original use, as receptacles of Latin and Greek exercises, containing explanations of these and many other phrases. His friends heard that he was hunting up odd words and queer customs, and dubbed him 'Antiquarian,' but in a kindly manner, spared his feelings, and did not put the ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... 'Queer little water-wagtail it is!' And Lady Grace Halley and Miss Graves and Mrs. Cormyn, snugly silken dry ones, were so taken with the pretty likeness after hearing Victor call the tripping dripping creature the happiest man in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... swept, the hearth tidied. It's a queer end to it all. Twenty years I bid them offer. Twenty ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... remember because everything could be written down and they would not need to use their memories. The Egyptians at first used pictures to put their words upon rocks or paper, and even after they made several letters of the alphabet their writing seemed like a mixture of little pictures and queer marks. ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... it seems; it's a queer world, sometimes we are up, and sometimes we are down. Time, Ab, works wonders, as ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... mere ignorance. The true enthusiast, we would like to think, is he who can travel daily some dozen or score of miles in the subway, plunged in the warm wedlock of the rush hours; and can still gather some queer loyalty to that rough, drastic experience. Other than a sense of pity and affection toward those strangely sculptured faces, all busy upon the fatal tasks of men, it is hard to be precise as to just what he has learned. But as the crowd pours from the cars, and shrugs ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... therefore, know as much about Malays as is good for any man; but, if I fail, it will be because I lack the skill to depict with vividness the lives of those whom I know intimately, and whom, in spite of all their faults, and foibles, and ignorance, and queer ways, I ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... It seems a queer freak of our human nature, that those who use the Bible in a dead, foreign language, unsuited for use in our public schools, should call our English version of the scriptures a sectarian book, and then oppose its use ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... drawn away the gun of his sleeping master, and shot him dead. The following appears to me an excellent plan:—"When getting sleepy, you return your rifle between your legs, roll over, and go to sleep. Some people may think this is a queer place for a rifle; but, on the contrary, it is the position of all others where utility and comfort are ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Albany. He is the son of a queer man, and is something of a humorist himself. I have seen one of his sons. He has two. One's name is Paraclete, and the other Preserved. His daughter is pretty, very, and her name is Deliverance. They call her Del, for short. They do, on my word! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... "That's queer, then," said John; "but I'm sure there's something of some kind between you two: you're planning something, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... Nomatterwhere, which again is, or really ought to be, one of the United States of America. Perhaps these are Indian names; similarly, perhaps they are not. There are five of these children, and I call them my Five Mice; and the queer house that they live in I call the Mouse-trap. They are such funny children! I watch them sometimes all day long, their pranks are so amusing; and then when night comes, I slide down a moonbeam and sit by their pillows, and tell them stories ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... queer," said the little dressmaker. And her face flushed again, and there were tears, not at all sorrowful ones, in her eyes; and her somewhat needle-pricked left hand accidentally laid itself upon the window-sill in easy ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... persons have a very queer idea of the suffragist. She is represented as a woman who dislikes home work and is absent from her home at all hours of the day and night. The most common picture is that in which the wife addresses a gathering of other women, ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... some of them vomited the Italian rye-grass that they had just eaten, accompanied by frothy slime; others brought it up during the night. Some of them trembled, gaped, and showed all the same symptoms that my calves had done, such as rapid pulse, &c. Two or three of them are rather queer to-day. I hope that Professor Simmonds or some capable person will tell us how this is? If we mow this grass, bring it home, and cut it into chaff, all which tends to heat or dry it, it becomes wholesome food. The same remarks apply in degree to very succulent tares. If the Italian grass is ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... hasn't, it appears," she sighed; "but then, I think it is going to take the nonsense out of a lot of people that are only erratic because they have never been properly fed. I guess I'll go and have a look at the old place in its Sunday evening calm. Already it seems queer not to be there at nine o'clock in the evening, but I don't really think there are people enough in New York now on Sundays to ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... this lane she turned, and sat down on the grass near the side gate of a fine garden. And as she sat there peeping through a hole in the hedge at some lovely beds of hyacinths and tulips, radiant in the sunshine, a queer-looking little old gentleman, with no hat on, but having a wonderful quantity of brown hair, came scolding down the garden path, followed by a man carrying a camp-chair. The old gentleman as he talked grew more and ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of a sudden, he laughed right out To see me sit quietly listening so; And began to tell us stories about Some queer ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... the trenches. Rumours raced up and down that three-hundred-mile line from Switzerland to the sea. We knew neither the source of them nor the truth of them. They came quickly, and they went quickly. Yet somehow I remember the very hour when George Casey turned to me with a queer look in his blue eyes, and asked if I had seen the Friend ...
— The Comrade In White • W. H. Leathem
... fully and in excess; look again at the portentous list of them! And since the essential jocularity of a pun (at least when it makes me laugh) lies in a humorous incongruity, its farcical gaiety may be heightened by a queer pronunciation. I cannot pretend to judge a sophisticated taste; but, to give an example, if, as I should urge, the o of the word petrol should be preserved, as it is now universally spoken, not having yet degraded into petr'l, a future squire will not be disqualified ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... the best thing that could have happened to you. Oh, yes, it is. The queer thing about it is that it didn't happen sooner. It was bound to come. You know, Emma, the Lord lets a woman climb just so high up the mountain of success. And then, when she gets too cocky, when she begins to measure her wits and brain ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... "Dere been some queer things white folks can't understand. Dere am folkses can see de spirits, but I can't. My mammy larned me a lots of doctorin', what she larnt from old folkses from Africy, and some de Indians larnt ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... very different; for instance, in London, and in almost all our towns, the houses are mostly brick, with tiles or thatch; but here, they are built of wood, covered with shingles. Your churches are meetinghouses. Queer name." Lord Upperton laughed. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... their money the infamous and exclusively human practice of capturing wild animals and keeping them all their lives in the torture of captivity. So deeply interested was Romulus in what he saw that he forgot his fear and cocked his head on one side and made a queer grimace; and his motions and attitude were so comical that Moses, the idiot, grinned at him through the pickets. But the grin was not the only manifestation of pleasure that Moses gave. A peculiar vermicular movement, beginning ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... man baffled by utter unreason: "Well, I am damned!" at which breach of good manners she winced. "Hang me if I understand you, Marian," he continued, more mildly. "Of course it's not true. Bad influence is all bosh. But it was a queer thing to say to his face. He knew very well you meant his sister. Hallo! what's the matter? Are you ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw |
