"Silly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any one did that to a silly old woman like me," she said musingly. "Was it you or your brother," she asked abruptly, "who nearly broke ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... nurse; "for in that case he will be the first to tire of you, and then hold him if you can. To-day he may be as sweet as honey to you, but to-morrow it will be another story. What are you going to say? That he is young, and handsome? Silly, silly girl. Is he any the less a man for that? Do you want to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... master and mistress labored under the delusion that he was silly enough to look up to them as kind-hearted slave-holders, to whom he should feel himself indebted for everything, William thought that they would be sadly puzzled to conjecture what had become of him. He was sure that they would be slow to believe that he ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... silly, my dear man!" Mrs. Lancaster said sharply. "Now, look here, Robert," she went on, "there is only one thing to be done. Say nothing to Mr. Bullard, but take the Scotch express to-night and go and see Christopher privately. I don't care what you tell him, but a public scandal—public ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... replied. "Some of the young chaps thought it first-rate, even though they were a little startled for the moment. Though why people should feel startled by anything so self-evident as my remarks beats me. Be hanged to them for silly idiots! Eh, Jean?" ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... truly—a French gentleman—a man of truth and courage and spirit and honor and everything good. A man who wouldn't tell a lie or do a mean thing, or flatter a silly woman, or persecute a very unhappy girl—no, not to save his soul, Mr. Sheppard. Do you happen to ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... false tenderness. There, take it away," he said, as Mrs. Lawson was placing her most comfortable footstool under his feet; "there was no attendance, no care, not a civil action or kind look for me when I was poor John Lawson, the silly, most silly old man, who had given up all to his son and his son's wife, for the love of them, and expected, like a fool as he was, to live with them on terms of perfect equality, and to have the family purse open to him for any trifling sums he wished to take. Go, go for ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... don't be silly. Now is your chance. I want to be introduced to those nice girls. Exceedingly nice they look, and pleasant companions they will be for you. Come and do your duty, ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... question set Nils laughing. He clapped little Eric on the shoulder. "What made him such a silly as to kill himself at ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... very silly. If he let one of us out and didn't let him back how could we both be here now? I don't want to cast any reflections on General What's-His-Name's intellect, but I should think he might figure that out for himself. Come around in the morning and we will talk ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... endure—solitude—and I have found it delightful. The hard and stubborn things that were beat into my head at school, and which I despised at the time, are useful pieces of knowledge now, and, viewing them, I wonder that I could ever have been so silly as to find my ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Cross; and in the evening dressed myself in a plain suit of the true Paris cut, and appeared in a front box at the play, where I saw a good deal of company, and was vain enough to believe that I was observed with an uncommon degree of attention and applause. This silly conceit intoxicated me so much, that I was guilty of a thousand ridiculous coquetries; and I dare say, how favourable soever the thoughts of the company might be at my first appearance, they were soon changed by my absurd behaviour into pity or contempt. I rose and sat down, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... more there is," said Mrs White with a half-ashamed smile; "but Jem, he knows I'm a bit silly over them, and he got 'em at Cuddingham t'other day. You see, the day I said I'd marry him he gave me a bunch of white laylocks—and that's ten years ago. Sitting still so much more than I'm used lately, with the baby, ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... When I was reading the Treaty, I thought all the names of foreign places, viz. Poindicherry, Chandenenagore, Cochin, Martinico, &c, all cessions. Not they—they are all so many traps and holes to catch this silly fellow in, and make a merchant of him! I really think the best way upon this principle would be this:—let the merchants of London open a public subscription, and set him up at once. I hear a great deal respecting a certain statue ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... at him, but his uncle Hildebrand grasped him firmly. "I ween, thou wouldst rage in thy silly anger. Then hadst thou lost forever ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... again to the dolls. "I hear that you dispute and quarrel sometimes, and I am very sorry for it. That is very foolish. It is only silly little children that we expect will dispute and quarrel. I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you says something that the other thinks is not true, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Do you hear? You are mine!' Then he whirled upon the priest. 'O what a fool I was to ever let you wag your silly tongue! Thank your God you are not a common man, for I'd—but the priestly prerogative must be exercised, eh? Well, you have exercised it. Now get out of my house, or I'll forget who and what you are!' Father Roubeau bowed, took her hand, ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... if I ever again walk abroad with a peruke at night!" grumbled Cale, as he let himself be hurried along by the eager Tom. "I am not a watchman. Why should I risk my goods for every silly wench who should know better than to be abroad of a night alone? Come, come, my young friend, my legs are not as long as yours; I shall have no wind for fighting if you drag ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... drink of buttermilk. We have lots of strawberries and cream, pot-cheese, Johnny-cakes, and there are always eggs and milk at our service. From diplomatic motives I advise you not to say too much about Hunter to people asking questions. It would entirely spoil its only great charm if a rush of silly city folks should scent it out. It is really a primitive place and that you can say. Mr. Coe preached an excellent sermon ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Edward, as some have called him, in derision I suppose, being a very silly fellow, had all the faults incident, and almost inseparable, to fools. He married my daughter Editha from his fear of disobliging me; and afterwards, out of hatred to me, refused even to consummate his marriage, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... chatelaines; bull-fighters, Spanish ladies; vivandieres, beguiled away from their homes under the pale of the church, "near a stream of running water, by a gay and handsome chevalier," and many other such silly things—Amedee will remember them always! They bring back to him, clearly and strongly, certain happy hours in his childhood! They make him smell again at times even the odor that pervaded the Gerards' house. A mule-driver's song will bring up before his vision the engraver ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... did not look very silly? My lord, smiling, and gazing at me from head to foot; Lord Jackey grinning and laughing, like an oaf, as I then, in my spite, thought. Indeed the countess said, encouragingly to me, but severely in persons of birth, "Lady Davers, you are as much too teazing, as Mrs. B. is too bashful. But you ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... said: "Now you speak of lamps, I know not whether the princess may have observed it, but there is an old one upon a shelf of the prince's robing-room. If the princess chooses, she may have the pleasure of trying if this fool is so silly as to give a new lamp for an old one, without taking anything ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... The Wench gives it out only to vex thee, and to ruin me in thy good opinion. 'Tis true, I go to the House; I chat with the Girl, I kiss her, I say a thousand things to her (as all Gentlemen do) that mean nothing, to divert myself; and now the silly Jade hath set it about that I am married to her, to let me know what she would be at. Indeed, my dear Lucy, these violent Passions may be of ill consequence to ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... rich blush permeated his surface. "Well, it seems a silly thing to say and all that, but I'm in love with ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... his hand towards another model, the one for which his assistants were preparing the stone. And this model represented an angel of the correct type, with symmetrical wings like those of a goose, a figure of neither sex, and commonplace features, expressing the silly ecstasy that tradition requires. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... resolutely for power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared before him. Galloway had triumphed and was triumphing not through obedience to the Sunday sermons and the silly novels, poems, plays, and the nonsense chattered by the obscure multitudes whom the mighty few exploit, but through obedience to the conditions imposed by our social system. If he raised wages a little, it was in order that he might have excuse for raising prices a great deal. If he gave ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... might be said that whatever folly is possible to a moneyless man, that folly I have at one time or another committed. Within my nature there seemed to be no faculty of rational self-guidance. Boy and man, I blundered into every ditch and bog which lay within sight of my way. Never did silly mortal reap such harvest of experience; never had any one so many bruises to show for it. Thwack, thwack! No sooner had I recovered from one sound drubbing than I put myself in the way of another. "Unpractical" I was called by those who spoke ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every man has one ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of Shakspeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions, which contend ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... learnt, I am sure of it quite, That this earth is a silly, strange place, And perhaps he's been beaten and hurt in the fight, And perhaps he's been passed in the race. But I know he has found it far better to sing Than to talk of ill luck and to sigh,— Little we care for the outside ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... land only and not the people, the nation, the government? Or, loving these, have you no love for the nearest public fraction of it, your own town and neighbors? Why, then, your love of the Stars and Stripes is the flattest, silliest idolatry; so flat and silly it is hardly worth chiding. Your patriotism is a patriotism for war only, and a country with only that kind is never long ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... for the maid and said to her, when she arrived: "Please, Tinette, pack a lot of fresh, soft coffee-cake in this box." A box had been ready for this purpose many days. When the maid was leaving the room she murmured: "That's a silly bother!" ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... would heartily wish that you may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners; it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry. In my mind there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter. I am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing and as apt to be pleased ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... loud voices, a tall burly yeoman of the King's guard came forward and plucked Robin by the sleeve. "Good master," quoth he, "I have somewhat to tell thee in thine ear; a silly thing, God wot, for one stout yeoman to tell another; but a young peacock of a page, one Richard Partington, was seeking thee without avail in the crowd, and, not being able to find thee, told me that he bore ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... cried Mrs. Davis, exhibiting the half-drowned brood. "You might as well be deaf and blind, Mell, for any care you take of 'em. Give you a silly book to read, and the children might perish before your eyes for all you'd notice. Look at Isaphine, and Gabella Sarah. Little lambs,—as likely as not they've taken their deaths. It shan't happen again, though. Give me that book—" And, snatching Mell's treasure from her hands, Mrs. Davis ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... character like him, but it was irritating, all the same, to have to wonder every night whether he would come in or not. When it got dark, Lantier again suggested the music-hall, and this time she accepted. She decided it would be silly to deny herself a little pleasure when her husband had been out on the town for three days. If he wasn't coming in, then she might as well go out herself. Let the entire dump burn up if it felt like it. She might even put a ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Don't laugh at me, please. I turned faint like a great silly girl. You touched the tenderest place, where my ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... of God, whose providing frugality is on an infinite scale, vigilant alike in heaven and on, earth; whose art colours a universe with beauty and touches with its pencil the petals of a flower. A soul thus pure and large disowns the paltry rules of dignity, the silly notions of great and mean, by which fashion distorts God's real proportions; is utterly delivered from the spirit of contempt; and, in consulting for the benign administration of life, will learn many a truth, and discharge many ant office, from which lesser beings, esteeming themselves ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... fierce, angry, proude, hasty and violent," and how also "he is reputed hoat and drie in the highest degree, bearing sway over redde choler." I should like to tell him about the passions, actions, and the gestures they occasion, described as they are with a sweet and silly unreasonableness that is very charming to read, and makes no demand whatever upon the understanding. But charming as are the pages of Lomazzo, those of Torrotti are more charming still, and they have a connection with our subject which Lomazzo's have not. Enough, therefore, that Mr. Haydocke did ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a year. But you wouldn't take anything. You simply disappeared, and carried ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... it all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... collar-bone. Looks to me as if 'twas high time to stop calling women the weaker sex when it takes so little to bring about a man's undoing. I've known plenty of foolish women in my time, but the most scatter-brained, silly girl I ever set my eyes on could see any number of men with their collars off and their trousers rolled up and not be any more allured than if she was looking at so many gate-posts. You men have certainly got to be a feeble sex, Joel. The wonder is you don't mind owning ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... on him with unfathomable disdain] YOU box! Slap an old woman with the back o your hand! You hadn't even the sense to hit her where a magistrate couldn't see the mark of it, you silly young lump of conceit and ignorance. Hit a girl in the jaw and ony make her cry! If Todger Fairmile'd done it, she wouldn't a got up inside o ten minutes, no more than you would if he got on to you. Yah! I'd ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... a cynical smile curled his sensual lips; "we are to say to as many silly flies as possible, 'come, walk into my parlor;' and if we cannot induce them to come ourselves, we are to employ some of our imps to accomplish that purpose; and, when we get them there, we are not to ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, so far as I know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... tell it. It upsets me too much.... No, that's silly, I've got to begin facing realities.... It was just when the Germans were taking Bruges, the Uhlans broke into this convent.... But I think it was in Louvain, not Bruges.... I have a wretched ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... all know that you will be happy enough, with your beloved Harriet. How frivolous and silly you will be, by the end of the first ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more as a companion than a servant. I was a vain, giddy girl, then, sir. A young man, the son of a neighbouring farmer, courted me, and I was much attached to him; but neither of us had money, and his parents would not give their consent to our marrying. I was silly enough to think that, if William loved me, he should have braved all; and his prudence mortified me, so I married another whom I did not love. I was rightly punished, for he ill-used me and took to drinking; ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... you are very kind," she said, "but if you please, I would much rather have you decide for me, because I am only a silly little girl, and you are so ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... shrugged. "He's out West or down South, prospecting about, I imagine. Awful bore, I thought him, and so silly to spend most of his time in the wilds when he could stay in the New York office and live like a ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... metaphysician can discern none either, the others certainly are in the right of it, as against him. His science is then but pompous trifling; and the endowment of a professorship for such a being would be silly. ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... which is the earliest known specimen of Castilian prose; and several smaller works, now collected under the general title of 'Opuscules Legales' (Minor Legal Writings). It was long supposed that he wrote the 'Tesoro' (Thesaurus), a curious medley of ignorance and superstition, much of it silly, and all of it curiously inconsistent with the acknowledged character of the enlightened King. Modern scholarship, however, discards this petty treatise from ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... been very anxious, met her at the corner. Perhaps it was not to be wondered at that Jason was somewhat cross and unreasonable. He said only a girl would be so foolish as to send that feather to the minister's daughter. Girls were all silly, even those who had high foreheads, and he would never trust one again. He hoped she was going to have sense enough not to tell, no matter what ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... them, on the next turn of the team, Uncle Aleck said, "Did you catch the lapwing, you silly boy? That ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... am a goose! What am I confessing here to myself? That I am in love with Karl? What silly nonsense. Come, Olga, you ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... This silly affair, however, greatly increased his rancour against me, which was before not a little, on account of my conduct in the Assembly respecting the exemption of his estate from taxation, which I had always oppos'd very warmly, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... will frankly confess to you, that my health most seriously and urgently requires the balmy air of dear Naples, and the more balmy atmosphere of those I love, and who love me; and that I shall forego my garret with more regret than most people of my silly rank in society forego a ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... be a silly old man," said Mrs. Craven. "And what on earth were you whispering about to ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... was a justice-deput to examine some women who had confessed judicially, and one of them, who was a silly creature, told me under secresie, that she had not confest because she was guilty, but being a poor creature who wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would either give her meat or lodging, and that ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... night. She looked into the bedroom for a few minutes, and saw the old woman asleep. Her old hand lay out on the coverlet, and still between the fingers was twisted the silly string of beads. Mabel went softly across in the shaded light, and tried to detach it; but the wrinkled fingers writhed and closed, and a murmur came from the half-open lips. Ah! how piteous it was, thought the girl, how hopeless ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... brought it up before. You spent weeks convincing me I ought to carry through with my internship and establish a practice. You said the time element didn't make any difference to you. You talked me out of the silly idea I had about cashing in on the man with two hearts. I admitted it was a silly idea. I turned away from it completely. Then you did the world's fastest about-face and began asking questions. You began pushing me in the direction you'd ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... eagle, my wings have failed, and my vision has been blinded. Disappointment and sickness have hitherto held dominion over me; twin born with me, my would, was for ever enchained by the shall not, of these my tyrants. A shepherd-boy that tends a silly flock on the mountains, was more in the scale of society than I. Congratulate me then that I have found fitting scope for my powers. I have often thought of offering my services to the pestilence-stricken towns of France and Italy; but fear of paining ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... he would never take the pains To seek the prize that labor gains, Until the time had passed; For, all his life, he dreaded still The silly bugbear of uphill, And ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of honour to his memory, the record of his three years' wanderings has been made public. What is the expression of his gratitude to the English? One service he certainly rendered us: he disabused, if that were possible, the French of their silly and most ignorant notions as to our British government in India and Ceylon: he could do no otherwise, for he had himself been astounded at what he saw as compared with what he had been taught to expect. Thus far he does us some justice and therefore some service, urged to it by his bitter contempt ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... notwithstanding such precedents, persons should still be found to object to Darwin's discovery, not because they were anxious to maintain the dignity of the heavenly bodies, but because they were so ludicrously anxious to maintain the dignity of their own! Good it is for man, puffed up with such silly pride, that ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... dramatic art which must have free play in the serious development of the one-act play than the readers of a "popular" magazine in America (or England either) would appreciate Kipling's "They," or George Moore's "The Wild Goose," or de Maupassant's "La Ficelle." To expect them to is silly; and to expect that because the supreme, vivid example of any form is comprehensible to all classes and all mixtures of classes, therefore the supreme example is going to be developed out of the commonplace stuff such mixed audiences daily enjoy, is ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... really seems as though the game were too small to take time for its killing, but as these weak and febrile maunderings really represent the "System's" reply to my charges, it may be worth while to show, once and for all, what idiotic lies they put forth and what a silly and ineffective falsifier it is that they have made their champion. I shall take the second article of the series and contrast Donohoe's statements ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a sportin' man and a A 1 feller, he's goin' to waltz down inter that hotel, rigged out ez he is? D'ye reckon he's goin' to let his partners get the laugh onter him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to show his head outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go 'long. Dad, you're talking silly!" ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the driver's encouraging, "Pop-pop! Dih-dih-dih! Ho-ho-ho! children of jungle swine; brothers to buffalo!" addressed to the horses lagging in the climb, fluttered away with his silly little cackle. ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... make a man repose, with slumbering virtue upon them, for the distinction he is to receive in society, than to inspire the effort of rendering himself worthy of them. They are to men what beauty is to women, a dangerous gift, which has a natural tendency to make them indolent, silly, and worthless. Let property be hereditary, but let titular honours be the reward of noble or useful exertions. France, in her folly, has destroyed them totally, instead of making them conditional.” Howbeit, titled people appear to have been ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... "Don't be silly! Snap out of it!" Bud gave his pal a cheerful poke in the ribs, hoping to buck him up. "You heard what Blake said—Washington itself was hardly touched. Without your setup, think of all the people that might ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... we strolled towards the Twelve Golden-Haired, "I hope you have no silly notions about confession, about telling the literal truth and so on. Because I want you to promise me that you will lie stoutly to your wife about Sylvia Joy. You must swear the whole thing has been platonic. It's the only chance for your happiness. Your wife, no doubt, will lure you ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... gradations Flora felt herself without shades, a creature of violent contrasts and impulses. If Clara had been going to carry the ring about with her she would have had a reason for it. But Flora had nothing but a silly fancy. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... to the Columbine dance at the San Diego, and when Lieutenant Ames wanted to make a foursome with Kitty and Arnold to go boating, she said most regretfully to each,—"Isn't it a shame? But my sister is having some kind of a silly club there to-night, and I ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... was just a little afraid of his self-confidence, and of this tall nobleman's habit of getting what he wanted, in the end: but she dispiritedly felt that Pevensey had failed her. Why, George Bulmer treated her as if she were a silly infant; and his want of her, even in that capacity, was a secondary matter: he was going into France, for all his petting talk, and was leaving her to shift as she best might, until he could spare the time ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... her breath. Her eyes grew big. She had not thought that Alice Weston—But then that did not matter now. Lorry was so abjectly sorry about something or other. He felt her hand on his sleeve. She was smiling. "You're just a great big, silly boy, ranger man. I'm really years older than you. Please don't tell me anything. I don't want to know. I just want you ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... of the four guardians of Anne Lovely, the heiress. He is a silly, half-witted virtuoso, positive and surly; fond of everything antique and foreign; and wears clothes of the last century. Mr. Periwinkle dotes upon travellers, and believes more of Sir John Mandeville than he does of the Bible. Colonel Feignwell, to obtain his consent ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... And then, thing of silly, cruel impulses that I was, I saw what I had done. The very thing that I wished to avert I had precipitated. For Allan, in his sudden terror and pity, had bent and caught her in his arms. For the first time they were together; and it was I who had ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... walking up and down, his room's next to mine, you know. And then if I listen hard enough, I can hear footsteps all over the house— you know how you do in the middle of the night. And there's always some one coming upstairs. This will sound silly to you up in London, but it doesn't seem silly here, I assure you. All the servants feel it, and Gladys is going at the end ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... is no hurry about Bellairs," said I. "It's rather a long story and rather a silly one. But I think we have a good deal to tell each other, and perhaps we had better wait till ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was to be made we might not yet know. We all kept to our own tasks and our own fires, with the exception that Daniel gawked and strutted in the manner of a silly gander, and made frequent errands to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... when I can get nothing else out of a man. Someone says, I forget who, that "a woman can always know in what opinion she is held by the conversation addressed to her," and is it not true? The foolish compliments paid to the pretty, but silly little debutante; the small talk to the fools; the sparring with the witty; the risque tales enjoyed by those of a more rapid style. Men find out first what are our tastes, and then dish up their conversation accordingly, and they do not ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... expedients of a man who was silly enough to tell the secrets of his Government, as regarded the intended injustice of the Brazilian Ministry towards me—in spite of stipulations thrice ratified by the Emperor's own hand. But in confiding them to Lieutenant Shepherd, the Envoy's want of common honesty, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... for my money," he perorated. "Stingaree, sir, is the greatest chap in all these Colonies, and deserves to be Viceroy when they get Federation. Thunderbolt, Morgan, Ben Hall and Ned Kelly were not a circumstance between them to Stingaree; and the silly old Bishop's a silly old fool to him! I don't care twopence about right and wrong. That's not the point. The one's a ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... "Silly girl!" he declared. "No, I am going to dine alone with her brother, the Count Sabatini. You see, I am private secretary now to a merchant prince, no longer a clerk in a wholesale provision merchant's office. We climb, my dear Ruth. Soon ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him to judgment, which he pretends to believe with a full assurance and persuasion: And yet for all this, he shuts his eyes against all conviction, and rusheth into the sin like a horse into battle; as if he had nothing left to do, but, like a silly child to wink hard, and to think to escape a certain and infinite mischief, only by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... it is, Hans," said one, "give her up. You have no chance of gaining the required sum for many years, and it's a hard case to keep a poor girl waiting. Give her up, man, and don't go on like a silly love-sick boy." ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... poor old Whiggery should have been so silly as to go a-wooing. Infirm and tottering as he is, it was the height of insanity. Down he dropped on his bended knees before the object of his love; out he poured his touching addresses, lisped in the blandest, most persuasive tones; and what was his answer? Scoffs, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... much correction; you are a very bombastic, disagreeable, silly, ignorant girl, but I will own it—I do admire spirit, you have a look of your father, and I was very fond of poor John; not as fond of him as I was of my own dear Tom, but still I respected him. Had he lived you would have been ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... moment he is at breakfast at home, having left to us this wild-goose chase of black stones in the Mugnone." "Marry," quoth Buffalmacco, "he did but serve us right so to trick us and leave, seeing that we were so silly as to believe him. Why, who could have thought that any but we would have been so foolish as to believe that a stone of such rare virtue was to be found in the Mugnone?" Calandrino, hearing their colloquy, forthwith imagined that he had the stone ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... "And then that silly custom of eating bon-bons, that brutal gluttony for sweetmeats, those abominable preparations for the wedding, those discussions with mamma upon the apartments, upon the sleeping-rooms, upon the bedding, upon the morning-gowns, upon the wrappers, the linen, the ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... Mart. They're all old men, for a fact, and I've noticed that Borden complains of rheumatism pretty bad. Pirates don't have rheumatism, in any book I ever read. Still, they're a queer gang—Birch with his one eye and Yorke with that silly-lookin' twisted mouth ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... her maid, had only held her silly tongue, Gerty might have been almost happy now. But Mary hadn't held her tongue, but conjured up Jack, and he was before her mental eyes at this very moment just as she had seen him last, the young and handsome lieutenant, ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... Hodges, "have we one of the faculty here? I see how it is, friend. You have been reading some silly book about the disease, and have frightened yourself into the belief that you have some of its symptoms. I hope you haven't been doctoring yourself, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... her self-possession partially. "Your father gave promise of attaining great eminence in a profession that was very proper for him, but I thought better of Dr. Leslie than this. I cannot understand his indulgence of such a silly notion." ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... when I see other scholars criticising the ancient literature of India as if it were the work of the nineteenth century, as if it represented an enemy that must be defeated, and that can claim no mercy at our hands. That the Veda is full of childish, silly, even to our minds monstrous conceptions, who would deny? But even these monstrosities are interesting and instructive; nay, many of them, if we can but make allowance for different ways of thought and language, contain ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... people: when any one is faring ill their sympathies are touched, they rush to the aid of the unfortunate; but when fortune smiles on others, they are somehow pained. "I do not say," he added, "this could happen to a thoughtful person; but it is no uncommon condition of a silly mind." (9) ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... easily be persuaded that, on slow work, the same sort of food should have even a more salutary effect on their horses. How prevalent was the notion, at one time, that horses could not be expected to do work at all, unless there was hard meat in them! 'This is a very silly and erroneous idea, if we inquire into it,' as Professor Dick truly observes, 'for whatever may be the consistency of the food when taken into the stomach, it must, before the body can possibly derive any substantial support or benefit from it, be converted into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... CHARLES. Because your silly schemes miscarry, you come here to turn rogue and assassin! Murder, boy, do you know the meaning of that word? You may have slumbered in peace after cropping a few poppy-heads, but to have a murder on ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the mighty ones, the conquering ones of this earth? the joyous? I believe not. The fool is happy, or comparatively so—certainly the least sorrowful, but he is still a fool: and whose notes are sweetest, those of the nightingale, or of the silly lark? ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... thought the chariot-races were pretty nifty, but if an old Roman should reassemble himself and watch the dray-race to a Homeburg fire, he'd wonder how he ever managed to sit through a silly little dash around an arena. From the south comes a cloud of dust and a terrific racket. At an equal distance from the east comes another cloud of dust and an even more terrible uproar, Clay Billings's dray having more loose spokes than Bill Dorgan's. The clouds approach with tremendous ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... found the diary, then," said Darrow easily. "Rather silly of me to complain so. But really, in conditions like these, tobacco becomes a ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and then he went up to the first pace and preached a sermon to the people, shewing them that as our lord Jhu dyed upon the Tree of his deare mercy for us, so we too owe mercy to the beasts his Creatures, for that they are all his poor lieges and silly servants. And that like as the Holy Aungells do atheir suit to him on high, and the Blessed xii Apostles and the Martirs, and all the Blissful Saints served him aforetime on earth and now praise him in heaven, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... the a at the close into ie, as so many young people—and older ones, too, who ought to know better—are in the habit of doing; for I never could understand why girls with so noble names as Anna and Mary and Helen and Margaret and Caroline should change them into the weak and silly forms that we hear every day. This change, which usually shortens the name and ends it with an ie, is called a diminutive, which, according to Worcester, means "a thing little of its kind," and so may well enough be used in the ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... seen how the great orators Crassus and Antonius pretended that they did not know Greek: the same silly pride made others pretend they had never heard of the Jews, even while they were practising the Mosaic rites. And the number of noble names (Cornelii, Pomponii, Caecilii) inscribed on Christian tombs in the reigns of the Antonines proves that Christianity had made way even ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... what other people might think or would think so engrossed all my time that I had no means of enjoying the presence, thought, or favor of the divine creatures I met, and I must have appeared 'cracked' to them with my reticence, pride, and silly airs. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... all of you silly bladder-brains...! This is Belt Parnay...! Ever hear of him? Come back from hell, eh? Not with just rocks, this time! The latest, surest equipment! Want to give up, now, Nelsen—you and your nice, civilized people? Cripes, what will you cranks ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... are in safety. They are not liable to be impressed for soldiers, and forced to cut one another's Christian throats, as in the wars of their own countries. If some of the religious mad bigots, who now tease us with their silly petitions, have in a fit of blind zeal freed their slaves, it was not generosity, it was not humanity, that moved them to the action; it was from the conscious burthen of a load of sins, and a hope, from the supposed merits of so good a work, to be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... said his father. "I suspect we have a young philosopher where you see only a silly little brother. He has, I fancy, got a glimpse of something he does not yet know ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... man turn pale under his tan, and for a moment he was speechless, while his mate Silas whispered something in his ear. But he would not listen. Instead, he pushed the man roughly away, angrily exclaiming, "Hold yer silly tongue, ye blame fool!" Then, turning ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... marriage, Celeste was seen to be a little woman, fair and faded almost to sickliness, fat, slow, and silly in the countenance. Her forehead, much too large and too prominent, suggested water on the brain, and beneath that waxen cupola her face, noticeably too small and ending in a point like the nose of a mouse, made some people fear she would become, sooner or later, imbecile. Her ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... of aspirants for the honor. Her brother-in-law Philip, since the abdication of Charles V., his father, was a mighty King, ruler over Spain and the Netherlands, and was at the head of Catholic Europe. He saw in this vain, silly young Queen of England an easy prey. By marrying her he could bring England back to the fold, as he had done with her sister Mary, and the Catholic cause ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... applause or your money. I don't care for money. I think you know enough of me through the newspapers to vouchsafe that. You are rich, and it is your chief misery. Listen! Whether you believe it or not, you are very unhappy. Let me read your horoscope. Your club life bores you; you are tired of our silly theatres; no longer do you care for Wagner's music. You are deracinated; you are unpatriotic. For that there is no excuse. The arts are for you deadly. I am sure you are a lover of literature. Yet what a curse it has been for you! When you see one of your friends drinking wine, you ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... interest of seeing a wedding company go by. The surliest, the most whining of the onlookers will spare a little relenting, a happier thought, for "two lunatics," "a couple of young fools whose eyes will soon be opened," "a pore delooded lad," "a soft silly of a gal;" who are still so enviable in ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Jove, it's like some years ago, The traffic stopping in a row In Piccadilly! The Vestry does not care a pin For all the muddle that we're in; They're much too silly. ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... Maids must kiss no men Till they did for good and all; Then she made the shepherd call All the heavens to witness truth Never loved a truer youth. Thus with many a pretty oath, Yea and nay, and faith and troth, Such as silly shepherds use When they will not Love abuse, Love, which had been long deluded, Was with kisses sweet concluded; And Phillida, with garlands gay, Was made the Lady of ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... "No, silly. How could I when they are all plastered over thick with snow?" was Bob's scornful retort. He was silent for a moment. "But don't you worry," he declared. "I am certain we came this way—at least ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... as the mule backed and caught the camel two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. "Another time," he said, "you'll know better than to run through a mule battery at night, shouting 'Thieves and fire!' Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet." ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... may be forty-one. Something of the style and manners of la tante de La R. Is about as silly; talks as much, and as much nonsense; is certainly good-tempered and cheerful; rather comely, abating a flat chest; about two inches taller than Theodosia. Things are not gone to extremities; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... off me was to give the whole thing away. My rig underneath, though good enough for your girl, Tom, on a holiday, wasn't just what they wear in the Square. And, d'ye know, you'll say it's silly, but I had a conviction that with that coat I should say good-by to the nerve I'd had since I got into the Bishop's carriage,—and from there into society. I let her take the hat, though, and I ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... back soon, nor that day. We had no news of him the next day. A few women were in his workshop, when I called, hunting about for footwear that should have been repaired and returned, but was not. "'Ere they are," cried one. "'Ere's young Bill's boots, and nothing done to 'em. The silly old fool. Why didn't 'e tell me 'e was going to sea? 'Ow's young Bill to go to school on Monday now?" The others found their boots, all urgently wanted, and all as they were when Pascoe got them. A commination began of light-minded cripples who took in ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... a job; the satisfied, brutal egotism of Brome Porter, who lived as if life were a huge poker game; the overfed, red-cheeked Caspar, whom he remembered to have seen only once before, when the young polo captain was stupid drunk; the silly young cub of a Hitchcock. Even the girl was one of them. If it weren't for the women, the men would not be so keen on the scent for gain. The women taught the men how to spend, created the needs for their wealth. And the social game they were instituting in Chicago ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the Hindu people are controlled and handicapped by silly superstitions which make life a burden to them and which rob them ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... a volume of poems, the sentimental and rather mawkish 'Fantasies and Sketches,' product of a journey in Jutland and of a silly love affair. This book was so harshly criticized that he resolved to seek a refuge and new literary inspiration in a tour to Germany; for all through his life, traveling was Andersen's stimulus and distraction, so that he compares himself, later, to a pendulum "bound to go backward ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "I'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, and wiping the tears from her merry little eyes, as she went on ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... side of the tall fence that looks as if it were made of crocheted wire. Sometimes Jehosophat's father opens the gate in the fence and lets the geese wander down to the pond. A silly way they have of stretching out their long white necks and crying, "Hiss, hiss!" This frightens Hepzebiah who always runs away. Then the geese waddle along in single file, that is one by one, like fat old ladies crossing a muddy street on their ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... silly with that, Tom," protested the other young aviator. "I can see the twinkle in your eyes, as if you were holding something back, so as to tantalize me. Are you free to tell me what this business of yours it is the captain has just handed ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... ye silly callant!" she exclaimed, in great tribulation, "ye are as great a fool as your faither is. He sees what he has made o' you. But as the auld cock craws the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... the tremulous wabbly-legged divan. Kedzie didn't like the phrase, either, now. When he had first smitten it from his brain she had thought it an inspiration and him a king. Now it sounded silly, coarse, a little indecent. Of course it had not succeeded. How could he ever have been so foolish as to utter it—"Kiss me again—who are you?" Why, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... all the evening; had already decided that the Lacys and Dinsmores were nice people who made her feel happy and at home with them; that she liked Mr. Calhoun Conly and his brother, Dr. Arthur, very much, but detested Ralph; thought Ella silly, proud, and haughty, and that with no excuse for either pride or arrogance. So now her principal attention was given to the ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... seemed to me, I must confess, a very foolish as well as dangerous amusement. Nevertheless the children seemed to be greatly delighted with the hideous faces they made. I pondered this subject a good deal, and thought that if little children knew how silly they seem to grown-up people when they make faces, they would not be so fond of doing it. In another place were a number of boys engaged in flying kites, and I could not help wondering that some of the games of those little savages should be so like to our own, although they had never seen ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne |
