"Quirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mail, and kept them so long in torture,—but still 'twas the torture of the happy—In this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always opened fresh springs of ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... to speak from indignation, could only shake his head and frown terribly, at which the midshipmen, as he was not their captain, laughed the more heartily. The Admiral had heard, too, of the trick Jack and his messmates had played with Quirk, the monkey, on Lieutenant Spry, of the marines, and while he told the story as he had received it from Jack, with a few amplifications of his own, the tears ran down his eyes, till Captain Sourcrout, boiling over with ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Heaven! I and mine have lived rent-free, time out of mind, voluntarily undertaken to publish the MEMOIRS of the RACKRENT FAMILY, I think it my duty to say a few words, in the first place, concerning myself. My real name is Thady Quirk, though in the family I have always been known by no other than "honest Thady"—afterward, in the time of Sir Murtagh, deceased, I remember to hear them calling me "old Thady," and now I'm come to "poor Thady;" ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... a hundred other things. His grinning brothers, Reuben and Burke And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work,— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the wax-end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot-holes and calked the cracks; ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... a reason for psionic phenomena to react violently under subconscious control," Senator Gonzales pointed out. "There's always a psychological quirk." ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... type of man, not overbalanced and erratic, without quirk or quibble of temperament. He was efficient, but not brilliant. His was a general all-round efficiency. He was efficient at the law; he was efficient at college; he was efficient as a sailor; he was efficient in the matter of pride, when that pride was no more than the pride ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... XIV. shall punctually restore all manner of towns and places, in the Palatinate &c. (much BURNT, somewhat BE-JESUITED too, in late Wars, by the said King, during his occupancy): CLAUSE OF FOURTH ARTICLE (added to it, by a quirk, "at midnight," say the Books) contains merely these words, "Religione tamen Catholica Romana, in locis sic restitutis, in statu quo nunc est remanente: Roman-Catholic religion to continue as it now is [as WE have made it to be] in such towns and places."—Which CLAUSE gave rise to very ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... ameliorate the suffering and persecuted of ail classes, Messrs. Quibble and Quirk, attorneys-at-law, beg to offer their professional services at the following fixed and equitable rate,—they, Messrs. Q. and Q., pledging themselves that on no occasion shall the charge exceed the sum opposite the particular amusement ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... covers it as completely as the vines on the wall," answered Rose Mary quickly, with a humorous quirk at her mouth that relieved the note of pain in her voice. "I know we can never pay it, but if something could be done to keep it for the old folks always, I think Stonie and I could stand it. They were born here and their ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Spry had merited punishment. They eagerly discussed the subject—all the midshipmen had been insulted in the person of Adair, and it was not long before a bright idea was elicited from among them. On board the ship, belonging to the men, was a large monkey, whom they called Quirk, a very tame and sagacious animal, who had a peculiar aptitude for learning any trick which any person had perseverance enough to teach him. "He'd know more nor any of the ship's boys if it weren't for his tail," the men ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, saw the dancing light in his eyes and a mirthful quirk of his lips, and blushed while ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... is very handy, as I never put my arms into the sleeves; they are as good as new, though come Holantide next I've had it these seven years: it holds on by a single button round my neck, cloak fashion. To look at me, you would hardly think "Poor Thady" was the father of Attorney Quirk; he is a high gentleman, and never minds what poor Thady says, and having better than fifteen hundred a year landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady; but I wash my hands of his doings, and as I have lived, so will I die, true and loyal to the family. The ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... Rose. She had Dolly in her pocket in five minutes, and before the end of the rehearsal, their treaty was signed and sealed. They were to be chums, bosom friends! The notion of it gave Rose the most spontaneous smile she'd had in days; the first one that hadn't had a bitter quirk in it. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... again into the house and desire some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour: belike this is a man of that quirk. ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... quirk to his mouth the gruff Senior Surgeon jerked his glance back from the open window where with the gleam of a slim torn-boyish ankle the frisky young Spring went scurrying through ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... with which he was so long connected. The prayers of those whose interests he cared for so earnestly will doubtless be fervently offered for his eternal rest. The funeral took place from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, on the morning of November 10th. The Rev. Father Quirk celebrated the Requiem Mass. The Rev. Father Boursaud, rector, and the Rev. Father Charlier accompanied the body to Calvary Cemetery. May he rest ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... say't, he's gleg enough, An' bout a house that's rude an' rough The boy might learn to swear; But then, wi' you, he'll be sae taught, An' get sic fair example straught, I havena ony fear. Ye'll catechize him every quirk, An' shore him weel wi' Hell; An' gar him follow to the kirk— —Ay when ye gang yoursel'. If ye then, maun be then Frae hame this comin' Friday; Then please Sir, to lea'e Sir, The orders ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... We have allowed you to be heard at full length; now you and your set will be silent and hear us. Very palpably your palaver about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity. Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the particular form or time or fashion in which the question ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... no move more than to drop his rejected arms, remained where she had left him, and requited her indignant stare with a broken smile of understanding, a smile at once tender, tolerant, and sympathetic, with a little quirk of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... his master with quip and quirk into exile. When all, even his daughters, had forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his own cloak; and when in our day we meet the avatars of Trinculo, Costard, Mercutio and Jacques, we find they are men of tender ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... they call it) we have had a wondrous growth of blockheads, even in our business. And if it were not for Shephard and Frazier, a hundred years hence, they would not think that in our times there were fellows bold enough to get sixpence out of a legal road, or dare to do anything without a quirk of the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... heard a quirk hark, then out of the shadows jumped Capi! He sprang onto my knees and licked me with his soft wet tongue. I hugged him in my arms and kissed his cold nose. It was not long before Mattia appeared. In a few words I told him that Barberin was dead and that there was now little hope ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... open doorway and gave a long whistle with a little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated porch swing. "You know," he said, his voice lowered confidentially, "I thought I'd take mother to New York for ten days or so. See the shows, and run around and eat at the dens ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... near setting, a sound very different from the warble of a bird is heard close by. It is some leader of a frog orchestra in the sedges of the canal giving the first note. It is like a quirk of gluttony just rousing from the torpor of satisfaction. The note is almost immediately taken up by other frogs, and the croaking travels along the canal-banks as fire would if there were a gale to help it. But the music only ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... notion of honesty in that kind was to cheat the buyer for his master if he could, proud to write in his book a large sum against the name of the animal. He would have scorned in his very soul the idea of making a farthing by it himself through any business quirk whatever, but he would not have been the least ashamed if, having sold Kelpie, he had heard—let me say after a week of possession—that she had dashed out her purchaser's brains. He would have been a little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Naomi Nations, Shame of you to talk 'gainst other girls' relations. Olive Osberta Orphelia Octavia O'Dyke, Your conduct is outrageous and unladylike. Polly Patience Prudence Paulina Pitt, You really are our champion tell-tale-tit. Quilla Quintina Quinburga Quendrida Quirk, How very, very, dirty you have made your fancy-work. Rose Ruth Rachel Rebecca Ritting, Now stop that crying and get on with your knitting. Sarah Sophia Selina Susannah Stacies, Don't spoil your face by making those grimaces. Tilda Theresa Tabitha ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... faint, healthy circulation of the blood well below the surface, which relieved her complexion of pallor, but did not give her a colour. The lips, on the contrary, were satin red, and Orde was mildly surprised, after his recent talk, to find them sensitively moulded, and with a quaint, child-like quirk at the corners. Her eyes were rather contemplative, and so black as to ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... exaggerated his proportions, but he seemed to Trixie the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped his high-domed skull, and his stern, powerful, swarthy face, big-nosed and long-chinned, with a humorous quirk at the corners of the heavy-lipped mouth, that redeemed its sensuousness, was lighted by eyes of the intensest black, burning under heavy beetle-brows. His khaki uniform, though of fine material and admirable cut, was that of a common ranker, and ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... usually his big car was loaded to the running boards. Bud was a good driver, and he had a friendly pair of eyes—dark blue and with a humorous little twinkle deep down in them somewhere—and a human little smiley quirk at the corners of his lips. He did not know it, but these things helped to fill ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... to do with it?" Mangan asked; and then he continued, in his indolent fashion: "Why, I thought you knew all about Quirk. Quirk belongs to a band of literary weaklings, not any one of whom can do anything worth speaking of; but they try their best to write up one another; and sometimes they take it into their heads to help an acquaintance—and then their cry is like that of a pack of beagles? you would ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... spoiled to be charming; she was ingenuous enough to be irresistible. Like two floating logs they met in a head-on rush, caught, and sped along together. Yet had Jeffrey Curtain kept at scrivening for twoscore years he could not have put a quirk into one of his stories weirder than the quirk that came into his own life. Had Roxanne Milbank played three dozen parts and filled five thousand houses she could never have had a role with more happiness and more despair than were in the fate ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... actor at one of the theatres, who, like the M.P., used to rehearse the whole time he was in the boat; but he was a lively, noisy personage, full of humour, and perfectly indifferent as to appearances. He had a quiz and a quirk for everybody that passed in another boat, and would stand up and rant at them until they considered him insane. We were on very intimate terms, and I was never more pleased than when he made his appearance, as it was invariably the signal for mirth. The ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... blind, so few of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs. Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... out the defendant and offered their services to represent him gratis. Thus the elder counsellor frequently found himself pitted in the justice's courts against his keen-witted and graceless sons, who availed themselves of every obsolete technicality, quirk, and precedent of the law to obstruct justice and worry their dignified parent, whom they addressed as "our learned but erring brother in the law." Not infrequently these youthful practitioners triumphed in these legal tilts, to the mortification of their father, who, in his indignation, could ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... taught by novelists and poets to think of as a place of freedom. I came, because I like freedom; I am staying because I like the climate. I find that what freedom means in the West is the ability of ignorant and fanatical persons to start some new, fantastical quirk of scriptural interpretation, to build a new cult around it, and earn ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... favorite with ladies; in fact, some ladies seem so infatuated with work of that kind, that, according to the new theory of the Future, a fruition of fancy-work will be amongst their other blissful realizations. And so, after surveying Deacon QUIRK'S spiritual potato fields, or perhaps some fresh (spiritual) manifestation of Miss PHELPS'S piety and intelligence, we may have the pleasure of seeing the sun and moon hung with tidies, and a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... but a private room was allotted for the lords to consult in. Dr. Patrick Darcy, an eminent lawyer, represented the Chancellor and the judges. Mr. Nicholas Plunket was chosen as Speaker; the Rev. Thomas O'Quirk, a learned Dominican friar, was appointed ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... curricle, &c. &c. She would suit me vastly well for a month or two, and by that time poor R—— would make his appearance, or somebody in his stead: at the worst, I should have a chance of some blessed metaphysical quirk, which would prove that inconstancy was a virtue, or that a new love is better than an old one. When it came to that, I should make my best bow, put on my ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... one, saw himself laying bare the man with savage glee when next they should encounter. He would whiten the big brute's face by showing he had probed him to the quick. Just let him laugh at me again, thought Gourlay, and I'll analyze each mean quirk of ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... behind the scenes, and exhibiting the wires. Not so JAMES PAYN. He comes in front, and comments upon the actions of his puppets, or upon men and morals in general, or he makes a quip, or utters a quirk, or proposes a quiddity, and pauses to laugh with you, before he resumes the story, and says, with the older romancers, "But to our tale." Most companionable writer is JAMES PAYN. Tells his story so clearly. A PAYN to be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... events Eben Tollman had no children and his thoughts fell into brooding and bitterness. His present attitude needed only a spark, such as jealousy or suspicion might supply, to fire it into some quirk ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... aerobatics and sham fights of the pool pupils. Every now and then another plane from England would arrive high over the aerodrome, spiral down and land into the wind. The ferry-pilot who had brought me left for Rafborough almost immediately on a much-flown "quirk." The machine he had delivered at Saint Gregoire was handed over to a pilot from Umpty Squadron when the latter reported, and we took to the air soon after lunch. The puppy travelled by road over the last lap of his long journey, in the company of ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... tome, Book, writing, compilation, work Attend the while I pen a pome, A jest, a jape, a quip, a quirk. ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... Father without returning thanks?' We laid down our knives and forks like boys caught in a watermelon patch, and the old man asked a blessing. I've been at his house often. He was a good man, but Secession caught him and he never came back. So, Quirk, you see, a son-in-law will be a handy man in the family, and with the start you made last night I hope for good results." The other boys seemed to enjoy my embarrassment, but I said nothing in reply, being a new man with the outfit. We reached the ranch ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Camp, Major A. R. Dugmore Along the Mohawk Trail, Percy Keese Fitzhugh Animal Heroes, Ernest Thompson Seton Baby Elton, Quarter-Back, Leslie W. Quirk Bartley, Freshman Pitcher, William Heyliger Billy Topsail with Doctor Lake of the Labrador, Norman Duncan The Biography of a Grizzly, Ernest Thompson Seton The Boy Scouts of Black Eagle Patrol, Leslie W. Quirk The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill, Charles Pierce Burton Brown ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... from the righteousness of the Father; to take refuge with his work instead of with the Son himself; to take refuge with a theory of that work instead of the work itself; to shelter behind a false quirk of law instead of nestling in the eternal heart of the unchangeable and righteous Father, who is merciful in that he renders to every man according to his work, and compels their obedience, nor admits judicial quibble or subterfuge. God will never let a ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... pretty quirk, Taught him by nature, how to work In iron with much ease; Sometimes to the forge he goes, There he knocks and there he blows, And makes ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... they are! With quirk and twist, And fraudful arts directed; (Save Grandpapa's dear stiff old "fist," Through all disguise detected;) But which is his,—her young Lothair's,— Who wooed her on the school-room stairs With three sweet cakes, and two ripe pears, In one ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... world, conservative and with a love for old fashions and old friends, a contempt for things that are modern. As he stood at the gate he thought that the mansion was glaring at him with an upturned nose and this imaginative quirk caused ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... a thin quirk of thin lips. "Now let me outline your duties, Marsden. You are posted to my ship as Executive Officer. An Executive Officer is ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... plaintive quirk of the voice the singer paused, gayly flicked the strings of the banjo, then put her hand flat upon them to stop the vibration and smiled round on her admirers. The group were applauding heartily. A chorus said, ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... actually smiled when Kitty was gone. Somehow a grievous burden had fallen off her mind. Likewise, by some psychological quirk, the idea of leaving Granville and making her home elsewhere no longer struck her as running away under fire. She did not wish to subject Kitty Brooks to the difficulties, the embarrassment that might arise from having ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Samuel C. Warren. With Portraits of Snap, Quirk, Gammon, and Tittlebat Titmouse, Esq. Two large octavo vols., of 547 pages. Price One Dollar; or an edition on finer ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... sects and sects! Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees—a legion of them! No sooner did they start with a new quirk when it turned political. Coponius, procurator fourth before Pilate, had a pretty time crushing the Gaulonite sedition which arose in this fashion and spread ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... and they are by no means nice and squeamish in their stomach for a mistress. They can also occasionally put off the assumed character of good breeding, and if it be necessary to act over again the celebrated scenes of Balfe and M'Quirk, they would not be found at a loss. My lord, they seem to have been created for this very purpose, and if you have any hope from a general election, you must derive every benefit from their distinguished merit. I own however, I am apprehensive for the experiment, ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... Tree, and made me see that we could do it," persisted Polly, giving a little quirk to ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... something in his eyes, or caught something in his tone that pleased them: for the midwife's mouth had a peculiar quirk and the other women all burst ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... of sweet sunshine, and peddling optimistic pokes and stable lines of japes and jokes to Lyceums and other folks, to Rotarys, Kiwanis' Clubs, and feel I ain't like other dubs. And then old Major Silas Satan, a brainy cuss who's always waitin', he gives his tail a lively quirk, and gets in quick his dirty work. He fills me up with mullygrubs; my hair the backward way he rubs; he makes me lonelier than a hound, on Sunday when the folks ain't round. And then b' gosh, I would prefer to never be a lecturer, a-ridin' ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... appeared so very green and blooming by the artificial light were now seen to be faded and dusty. Only the gilding of the room in some degree brought itself into keeping with the splendours outside, stray darts of light seizing upon it and lengthening themselves out along fillet, quirk, arris, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... heart, but the unexpected clatter of hoofs still set his pulses a-flutter. Why had fate snatched so gentle a youth from his law desk and flung him into such turbid waters to sink or swim? All he had asked was peace—friends, books, a quiet life. By some ironic quirk be found himself in scenes of battle and turmoil. As the son of John Beaudry he was expected to show an unflawed nerve, whereas his eager desire was to ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... long-nosed humorous faces, a singularly awkward construction, a shambling gait; but with altruistic dispositions and an ability to get over the ground at an extraordinary speed. Every move is a joke; their expression is always one of grieved but humorous astonishment. They quirk their heads sidewise or down and stare at an intruder with the most comical air of skeptical wonder. "Well, look who's here!" says ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... by something thrown into the water, leap out by dozens, together with the dace, and wreck themselves upon a floating plank. It is the little light-infant of the river, with body armor of gold or silver spangles, slipping, gliding its life through with a quirk of the tail, half in the water, half in the air, upward and ever upward with flitting fin to more crystalline tides, yet still abreast of us dwellers on the bank. It is almost dissolved by the summer heats. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... the note of calm authority in his voice. He did not know, evidently, that she was more accustomed to giving commands than to obeying them; her lips gave a little quirk of amusement at ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... in hand was conclusively on his side. He had been forced into a fight not of his own choosing; an effort, which had failed, had been made to take him unfairly from behind; he had fired in self-defense after having first been fired upon; save for a quirk of fate operating in his favor, he should have faced odds of two deadly antagonists instead of facing one. What else then than his prompt and honorable discharge? And to top all, the popular verdict was that the killing off of Jess Tatum was so much good riddance of ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... beyond the nearest bushes before Yan found another quirk in the trail. It doubled back at Z. He unravelled the double, glanced around, and at O he plainly saw the Deer lying on its side in the grass. He let off a triumphant yell, "Yi, yi, yi, Deer!" and the others came running back just in time to see Yan ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... line. Eyes sparkled. Little happy screams and miniature war-whoops from the boisterous youngsters rang through the parlor. In eye, and look, and voice, the popular tribute spoke in honor of the popular instrument,—an instrument whose strings can sound almost every passion forth: The quip and quirk of merriment, the mourner's wail, the measured praise of solemn psalms, the lively beat of joy, the subtle charm of indolent moods, and the sweet ecstacy of youthful pleasure, when with flying feet and in the abandon of delight she swings, circles, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the poor woman was slowly wasting, worn out by the regrets of the past, the vain desires of the present, and the dreary prospect of the future. And now she had been openly insulted, her feelings as a mother wounded to the quirk; and her husband's uncle, instead of defending and consoling her, could give only cold counsel ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... must be on myself. Apathy or the affectation of apathy must be acquired—Inevitably must be—My passions must be masked: I must pretend to have conquered them. In their naked and genuine form they are indecent, immoral, impure, I know not what! But catch a metaphysical quirk, and let vanity and dogmatic assertion stand sponsors and baptize it a truth, and then raptures, extravagance, and bigotry itself are deities! Be then as loud, as violent, as intolerant as the most rancorous of zealots, and it is all the sublime ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... language I have dug To show the meaning of a Slug; And must conclude, upon the whole, It means a stupid, lifeless soul, Whose object is to live at ease, And his own carnal nature please; Who always has some selfish quirk, In ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the age of nine I was sent away from home and began an independent career at the boarding-school kept by the Reverend Mr. Quirk, at Methuen, Massachusetts. Here I remained for seven years, in the course of which both my parents died, victims of typhoid. I was cast upon the world utterly alone, save for the rather uncompromising and saturnine regard in which I was ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... unless one was of high birth, it was very difficult to become a senior officer in the Prussian army, and as sergeants never became second lieutenants, his former company still had the same captain and the same sergeant-major. Placed by a quirk of fate in the presence of his one-time soldier, now a marshal, the Prussian captain, who remembered Augereau perfectly well, acted as a man of discretion and spoke always to the marshal as if he had never seen him before. Augereau invited him to dinner and seated him next to himself, then, learning ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... was for the first time seeing the point of some of those jokes of life for which his natural temperament had given him a relish. He acquired in those days a quizzical cock to his right eyebrow, and a comically confidential quirk to his mouth, which were in themselves enough ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... laughed right out loud. “Ah!” says he, “I see what ails you now. Galuchet’s been at you.”—Father Galoshes was the name he went by most, but Case always gave it the French quirk, which was another reason we had for thinking him above ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... PREPARATIONS—MORPHINE, LAUDANUM, PAREGORIC, ETC.—Symptoms: Giddiness, drowsiness, increasing to stupor, and insensibility; pulse usually, at first, quirk and irregular, and breathing hurried, and afterwards pulse slow and feeble, and respiration slow and noisy; the pupils are contracted and the eyes and face congested, and later, as death approaches, the extremities become cold, the surface is covered with cold, clammy perspiration, and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... gives Himself. God is all fair, but the central and substantial beauty of the divine nature is that it is a stooping nature, which bows to weak and unworthy souls, and on them pours out the full abundance of its manifold gifts. So the 'beauty of the Lord' means, by no quibble or quirk, but by reason of the essential loveliness of His lovingkindness, both God's loveliness and God's goodness; God's graciousness and God's gracefulness (if I may use ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... strike out fecal flashes to illuminate them. His correggiosity was at times overpowering. His vocabulary overcame him often, bore him away from his thought and landed him in some swamp out of which he was wont to extricate himself, to the great delight of the semi-educated reader by some quip or quirk equally meretricious and mephitic. Thus would he, metaphorically, throw filth at himself. He felt all the time that he was pursuing the best course, bending things he despised and loathed to better purposes. Mr. Brann believed that the country was, if not in itself ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... been different—but life was different, easier, when he had married—and his wedding most appropriate to felicity. Yet that, against every apparent reason to the contrary, had vanished, and left him this calm determining of his fate. Through his thoughts a quirk of memory ran like a tongue of flame. He felt Savina's hand under his cuff; he felt her sliding, with her arms locked about his neck, out of her furs in the automobile; a white glimmer, a whisper, she materialized in the coldness of the night. There ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... reasoning; petitio principii [Lat.], ignoratio elenchi [Lat.]; post hoc ergo propter hoc [Lat.]; non sequitur, ignotum per ignotius [Lat.]. misjudgment &c 481; false teaching &c 538. sophism, solecism, paralogism^; quibble, quirk, elenchus^, elench^, fallacy, quodlibet, subterfuge, subtlety, quillet^; inconsistency, antilogy^; a delusion, a mockery, and a snare [Denman]; claptrap, cant, mere words; lame and impotent conclusion [Othello]. meshes of sophistry, cobwebs of sophistry; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... they had sunk into the sea-bottom ooze; sand had covered the ooze and pressed it tighter and tighter, until it had become glassy flint, and the entombed jellyfish little beans of dense stone. Some of them, by some ancient biochemical quirk, were intensely thermofluorescent; worn as gems, they glowed from the wearer's ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... none of the care. "Once it was her head, and then it was her shoulders; and now her eyebrows are all of a quirk." ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... details of the small boy's appearance came back, later, with an amazing clarity. Later she could have described his dark, sullen eyes, his mouth with its curiously grim quirk at one corner, his shock of black hair and his ragged coat. But at the moment she had the ability to see only one thing—the scrawny gray kitten that the boy had tied to the iron leg of the bench; the shrinking kitten that the boy was torturing with ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... outline or perfection of feature, so much as lovely, with the lustrous loveliness which defiantly overrides the lapse of line and proportion, and imperiously demands the homage of every man born of woman. Chill analysis might have judged the mouth, with its delicate, humorous quirk at the corners, too large; the chin too broad, for all its adorable baby dimple; the line of the nose too abrupt, the wider contours lacking something of classic exactitude. But the chillest analysis must have warmed to enthusiasm at ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... rocky soil; nothing came of the little artifice. No Buddha's graven face was less indicative than the squat man's. Perhaps his face was too sore to permit mobility of expression. The drollery of this thought caused a quirk in one corner of Kitty's mouth. The squat man stopped at the foot of the bed with the air of a mere passer-by and seemed more interested in the investigations of the policeman than in the man on ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... it, and rubbed his eyes as he looked at it, and wondered; then he began to remember what Mother Quirk had said to him; and he would have given a good deal just then to have been back again at the well, as he was before the angry old woman boxed his ear. He was ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... mock me not! In vain with quirk and jest I strive to quench the passion in my breast; In vain thy blandishments would make me play: Still I desire far more than I can say. My knowledge halts, ah, sweet, be piteous, Instruct me still, while time remains to us, Be what thou wist, Goddess, moon-maid, Marquise, So ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... I say't, he's gleg enough, An' 'bout a house that's rude an' rough, The boy might learn to swear; But then, wi' you, he'll be sae taught, An' get sic fair example straught, I hae na ony fear. Ye'll catechise him, every quirk, An' shore him weel wi' hell; An' gar him follow to the kirk— Aye when ye gang yoursel. If ye then maun be then Frae hame this comin' Friday, Then please, sir, to lea'e, sir, The orders wi' ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... clipped closely, and was pleasantly and honorably sprinkled with gray. His face was broad and tanned; the nose was tilted, and the wide mouth was both kindly and humorous. One knew, from the tint of his blue eyes and the quirk of his lips, that when he spoke there would be a bit of brogue. He was James Harrigan, one time celebrated in the ring for his gameness, his squareness, his endurance; "Battling Jimmie" Harrigan, who, when he encountered his first knock-out, retired from the ring. He ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... smaller but much more outspoken petition from the inhabitants of Quirk, in Yorkshire. "The petitioners," it was there urged, "have a full and immovable conviction—a conviction which they believe to be universal throughout the kingdom—that the House does not, in any constitutional ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... as seaman, Kipping, mild and quiet, came to the forecastle. But as he packed his bag and prepared to leave us, he smiled constantly with a detestable quirk of his mouth, and before going he stopped beside downcast old Bill Hayden. "Straighten up, be a man," he said softly; "I'll see that you're treated right." He fairly drawled the words, so mildly did he speak; but when he had finished, his manner instantly changed. Thrusting out his ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... of seats a prim little body, full of a severe quaintness in every quirk of dress, tilted her head toward a neighbor, and whispered, "It's that racin' ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... we were assembled, which branch of the Parliament we should petition, whether King, Lords, or Commons, and it would be quite time enough to consider that point when we were assembled. It always required considerable address and presence of mind to keep the upper hand of these legal quirk-dealers, these impudent under-strappers, whose whole trade consists in trick and chicane; but I do not recollect ever having been outwitted by any one of them as to the proceedings ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt |
