"Sort out" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... once, they see something. Down go their long hooks through the water. A moment afterward, they begin to tow a tangle of stones and seaweed to the shore. As soon as they land, they begin to sort out the great mass. Perhaps they will rejoice in finding large pieces ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade
... was nearly done now; there were only a few cards left. Opposite to him was a welter of party-colored counters that the croupier had not yet had time to sort out and add to the rouleaux already made; there were also a fair accumulation of notes and several little stacks of gold—in all, not less than five-hundred pounds, certainly. Happy banker! How easily had he won in a few minutes more than I, with utmost pains, could win in many ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... Stefan's spirit soared. He rang up the French Line and secured one of the few remaining berths for their next sailing, which was in three days. He telephoned an ecstatic cable to Adolph. Then, hurrying to the attic, he brought down his friend's old Gladstone, and his own suitcase, and began to sort out his clothes. Mary, anxious to quell her heartache by action, came up to help him, and vetoed his idea of ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Charley," bade Mr. Adams. "That's first. There's the axe." And he proceeded to sort out the food, while Mr. Grigsby busied ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... little while the great hall where I had helped to sort out packages was a hospital ward where doctors and nurses worked very quietly and from which there came faint groans of anguish, horrible in their significance. Already it was filled with that stench of blood and dirt and iodoform which afterwards used to sicken ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... wind that bore us away from the launch also spread the screen of steam between us and them. A shot or two from Schillingschens rifle proved him to be still alive, and still determined, but missed us by so much that we began to dare to sit upright. Then Fred went below to sort out wounded men, plug holes in the dhow, and stop the panic, and we all prayed for wind with a fervor they ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... men take little trouble to sort out the incoming suggestions. They allow uncriticized beliefs and prejudices, the ideas of hatred, anxiety or ill-health, free entrance. They fail to seize and affirm the ideas of power, renovation, joy. They would be more careful, did they grasp more fully ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... the end of April that I had been given these papers to sort out by Dr. Robertson: and it came suddenly back upon my mind that they were thus prepared for a Spanish historian, or a man calling himself such, who had come with high recommendations to the Principal, on a mission of inquiry as to the dispersion of the great Armada. Putting one thing with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in my one solitary companion. I longed for something enlivening; a burst of words; human vivacity of one kind or other. After in vain essaying to get something of this sort out of Jarl, I tried it all by myself; playing upon my body as upon an instrument; singing, halloing, and making empty gestures, till my Viking stared hard; and I myself paused to consider whether I ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... "is a nice kind of party. You might have had more sense, J. J., than to invite people of that sort out ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... of him in order; nobody can now; and, indeed, I am not trying to. These are the traditions, which I sort out, as I believe them, from the myths which have been told about this man for forty years. The lies that have been told about him are legion. The fellows used to say he was the "Iron Mask"; and poor George Pons went to his grave in the belief that this was ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... furthered by the tremendous public curiosity that follows him in all he does. There is a wizardry about him which fascinates, and makes excellent reading in the press. Long before I saw the three-winged screen upon which it is his custom to sort out and pin up his random notes for a play, it was featured in the press. So were pictures of his "collection," in rooms adjoining his studio—especially his Napoleonic treasures which are a by-product of his Du Barry days. No man of the theatre is more constantly on the job than ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... character. The first of these is the very long and thorough training which his scholarship has necessitated in the dispassionate examination of evidence. Through years of historical study he has learnt carefully to sort out strong from weak evidence and to base his judgements only on such evidence as may be regarded as thoroughly reliable. A cursory glance through the pages of Danton and a quite casual perusal of a few of the foot-notes in that book will leave the reader with no doubts on this point. In course ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... he, "I guess you better go upstairs an' sort out some o' the bed-linen an' coverlets. I understood they wa'n't quite ready, an' we shall get to 'em before long. If I come to anything down here I think you set by particularly an' that you can pack up as well as not, I'll ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... returned home, we must look through her papers, get her clothes together, sort out the clutter of phials, bandages and innumerable things that sickness collects—jostle death about, in short. It was a ghastly thing to enter that attic, where the crumbs of bread from her last meal were still lying in the folds ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... pass on to the General Post-Office, and see how London's letters are dealt with. You may say that there cannot be anything interesting in that—that it is quite simple to sort out letters and send them to the right persons. Yes, if you or I had perhaps six letters we could do it easily; but if we had six thousand it would be rather more difficult. The business of the General Post Office grows and increases every year, and the buildings are ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... never asked of old, and lately would rather have died than ask. So she took daily to the winding roads that led to a distant bridge and the hills with their forests. This day her need was at its sorest. When she had gathered a meager crop she sat down under a tree, and began to sort out the herbs upon her knees. One tender leaf she could not resist taking between her teeth, that had had so little else of late to bite on; and as she did so coarse laughter broke upon her. It was her rude suitor who had chanced across her path, and he mocked at her, crying, "This is the Proud ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Orde, with a laugh, "here is where I fool him. I'm going to rush the drive into the booms all at once, but I'm going to sort out Heinzman's logs at these openings near the entrance and turn them into ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White |
