"Jumpy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... example, in the matter of the great oil amalgamation. In these days of aeroplane travel, when it is next to impossible to watch the comings and goings of important individuals, or even to get wind of directors' meetings, the City is apt to be a little jumpy, and to respond to wild rumours in a fashion extremely trying to the nerves of ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step, frowning. "Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite make you out. Are you keeping back anything? Because if you are, for Heaven's sake have it out here and now! We're all in this game together, and we can't afford to be anything but ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... He's working late nearly every night, getting stuff cleared up before vacation. He doesn't want any extra problems, especially not Cat problems. Mom's been having asthma a good deal lately, and we're all pretty jumpy. It's always like this at ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... "From what I can make out, as soon as the stoats, who were very nervous and jumpy already, heard the shrieks and the yells and the uproar inside the hall, some of them threw down their rifles and fled. The others stood fast for a bit, but when the weasels came rushing out upon them they thought they were betrayed; and ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... my spirits, but as the hours passed with the same uncanny hurrying to and fro all about me my nerves began to suffer. Weeks of espionage at Blaauwildebeestefontein had made me jumpy. These people apparently meant me no ill, and had no time to spare on me, But the sensation of moving through them was like walking on a black-dark night with precipices all around. I felt odd quiverings between my shoulder blades where a spear might be ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... the world for whom I have any affection." His voice trembled, and none could doubt his sincerity. "Somehow I am getting nervous about things—that shooting which I witnessed the other night has made me jumpy—go in and win." ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... Dudley and Macartney were in the living room, talking. Any other time I might have wondered why Dudley looked so jumpy and bad-tempered, but all I was thinking of then was my ugly news. But before I could tell it, Dudley flew at me. "Where the devil have you been all day? And what's happened to ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... yawned and stretched himself. His head was aching a little. The room seemed to him a trifle close. He got out of bed and threw open the window. Then, returning to bed, he picked up a book and began to read. He was conscious of feeling a little jumpy, and reading generally ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... barometer rose very high, much higher than it would in ordinary weather. This morning, it was jumpy, showing—as the changes in the haziness of the air showed—irregular and violent movements in the upper atmosphere. It is now beginning to go down steadily, a little faster every hour. This is an almost sure sign that there is a hurricane in action somewhere, and, probably, within a ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... who was with Mason's forces on their march to Toledo gives a description of the soldiers' jumpy nerves. Various jokers had circulated dark stories of the number of sharp-shooting Buckeyes waiting for them at Toledo, which so alarmed this amateur legion that nearly one half of those who had marched boldly from Monroe availed themselves of the road-side bushes ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... Supper was a jumpy meal, and nobody had much to say, Allie Briskow least of all. She was silent, intense; she curtly refused Buddy's offer to send her home, and when the meal was over she followed Gray back to the derrick. He was on edge, of course. It seemed to him that every blow of ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... to be looked at was on hand, right enough—and I reckon it showed to most advantage by about as much light as it got from the stars. All they could make sure of was something alive, moving sort of awkward and jumpy, coming out from a tangle of mesquite bushes not more'n three rods off and heading straight for 'em; and seeing it the way they did—just a black splotch all mixed in with the shadows of the bushes—it looked to be most as big as a cow! Limp ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... loneliness of the felt rather than seen, expanse of water, marsh and mud-flat of the Haven—the tide being low—along with the goblin whispering chuckle of the river speeding seaward away there on his left, made him oddly jumpy and nervous. No human being was in sight, neither did any human dwelling show signs of habitation. He wished he had gone round by the road and through the length of the village. He registered a vow against short cuts—save in broad daylight—for ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... "And blass the Prince of WAILES!" After which he subsides, occasionally breaking the silence to sigh aloud, "O Maman!" and thenceforth, for the greater part of the journey to Paris, he slumbers in a more or less jumpy manner. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... talking slightly and pleasantly. She left on my mind the impression of a certain odd mixture of shyness and sharpness; as if she knew the world well, but was still a little harmlessly afraid of it. Perhaps the possession of so jumpy and incalculable a husband had left her a little nervous. Anyhow, when she had retired to the inner chamber once more, that extraordinary man poured forth his apologia and autobiography over the ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... effort or knowledge that you are doing it. We had been talking, and the sight of that building, so unexpected, startled us into silence. It would any one. Believe me, your imperturbable man with perfect, cool, self-possession does not exist. Man's a jumpy thing, given to nerves. You may deny it and talk about the unexcitability of the American citizen and all that bunk, but let me tell you that your journalists and moving picture producers and preachers and politicians have caught on to the fact that man is jumpy, and they ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various |
