"Riffraff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... listened to. Just tore the circumstantial evidence to pieces and freed his man! Besides his profession at the bar, he is an unusually gifted criminologist; takes a strong personal interest in the lowest riffraff; is writing a book, I understand—one of the kind that will throw a new ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... interference with what so closely touched his comfort. He was not a horse to eat bran. His bakery—under inspection—conformed rigidly with the Government requirements; but he had no intention of spoiling his own dinners. Any necessary conservation could be effected at the expense of the riffraff through which he had driven coming from the station. Black bread was no new experience ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... (useless refuse) 645; offscourings[obs3], outscourings[obs3]; off scum; caput mortuum[Lat][obs3], residuum, sprue, fecula[Lat], clinker, draff[obs3]; scurf, scurfiness[obs3]; exuviae[Lat], morphea; fur, furfur[obs3]; dandruff, tartar. riffraff; vermin, louse, flea, bug, chinch[obs3]. mud, mire, quagmire, alluvium, silt, sludge, slime, slush, slosh, sposh [obs3][U. S.]. spawn, offal, gurry [obs3][U. S.]; lientery[obs3]; garbage, carrion; excreta &c. 299; slough, peccant humor, pus, matter, suppuration, lienteria[obs3]; faeces, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... because after the death of Abraham Lincoln it had intrenched itself in the proscription of Southern men. The attempt to form a third party had shown no strength and had broken down. There was nothing for me, and the Confederates who were with me, but the ancient label of a Democracy worn by a riffraff of opportunists, Jeffersonian principles having quite gone to seed. But I proposed to lead and reform it, not to follow and fall in behind the selfish and short-sighted time servers who thought the people had learned nothing and forgot nothing; and instant upon finding myself in the saddle I sought ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... serve my prince in his wars, there is a necessity upon me to rest contented with whatever company I fall into, though never so unsuitable to my quality or disagreeable to my nature and humor; but voluntarily and needlessly to associate myself with any riffraff rabble would ill become any man ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... and die than decay in ideals and traditions and heritage!" Miss Lizzie Bettie looked around the room. "Here we are educating everything in Yorkburg. Next year two new handsome schools will be opened and filled with the riffraff of the town. What are we going to do with them after they're educated? Our streets have been ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... before yestiddy. Speaks fair English an' a bit o' Dago. They're allus handy on a pleasure-boat. He c'n keep off th' riffraff boatmen. An' you know what persistent cusses they be ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... gold and silver money to be burnt at the grave and so wafted to the next world for use of the departed spirit, tablets embossed with golden Chinese characters, and lanterns of varied size and shape are carried in advance by an army of riffraff. A band of priests chanting, or playing weird dirges on instruments much resembling bagpipes in sound, immediately precedes the catafalque, an immense edifice from ten to fifteen feet in height, containing the coffin and covered with ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... hard. But it'll be the makin' of a great country. It'll weed out the riffraff.... See here, Kurt, I'm goin' to give you a hunch. Have you had any ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... history of every leading family in town. It took Bill to expose the new-rich; he did it handsomely. The way these breakfast millionaires lorded and landaued it highly amused him. Who were they, anyhow? Coal-heavers, hod-carriers, stock-speculators, riffraff, who possessed an ounce of brains and a pound of luck. Why, they didn't even know how to spend their money when they got it. But what could be expected of people who put iron dogs and wooden deers on their ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... saw you in the Hope So gambling place last night, drunk, staggering, mixing with that riffraff, on the verge of ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... in Papeete, immediately after his announcement that he was going with me over all the sea, and the islands in the midst thereof. There was a club in those days in Papeete, where the pearlers, traders, captains, and riffraff of South Sea adventurers foregathered. The play ran high, and the drink ran high; and I am very much afraid that I kept later hours than were becoming or proper. No matter what the hour was when I left the club, there was Otoo waiting to ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... floor. "Ain't like what it used to be," she told me. "In the old days girls used to work here till they got married. We used to have parties here and, say! they was nice girls in them days. Look at 'em now! Such riffraff! New ones comin' in all the time, new ones worse each time. Riffraff, that's what they are. It sure looks nice to see a girl like you." (What good were the earrings doing?) "We'll make it just as nice here for you as we can." (Oh, how guilty ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... them down and drained off their soluble parts, leaving only a residuum of mud along fences and hedges where, a few days before had been shapely piles of snow. April came with its deluges of rain that washed the earth clean and carried off the riffraff of the previous season, making ready for another and more bountiful harvest. What a thrifty ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... ill-dressed as the rest of them, but he did not speak in the Cockney dialect. If he was of the riffraff of the streets, as his companions were, ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 1.—Monte Carlo! One of the most disgraceful places in Europe—a blot upon our civilisation. The gambling is productive of the greatest possible misery. It is an institution that should be held up to the execration of mankind. All the riffraff of the globe are attracted to this hideous spot. The place is like an upas-tree, under which everything noble and good languishes and dies! The form of Government is absolutely immoral. It is a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various |
