"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... own word for it that he was often in mufti. His mind is generally dressed, he says, like his body, in black; for though he is so brisk a spark in company, he suffers sadly from the spleen when he is alone. We can follow him pretty closely through his day. He is a queer mixture of profanity and piety, of coarseness and loyalty, of cleverness and density; we do not breed this kind of beau nowadays, and yet we might do worse, for this specimen is, with all his faults, a man. He dresses carefully in the morning, in his uniform or else in his black suit. ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... think I could!" said Dick emphatically. "It's very queer, but just look here," and he came up to the sideboard and placed himself by the side of his horrified father. "Why," he said, with another giggle, "we're—he-he—as ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... hearth-warmth and hearth-glow. He cared for them perhaps too much; I, probably, too little. However, I had my own fancies as well as he. I liked, for instance, to see M. Emanuel jealous; it lit up his nature, and woke his spirit; it threw all sorts of queer lights and shadows over his dun face, and into his violet-azure eyes (he used to say that his black hair and blue eyes were "une de ses beautes"). There was a relish in his anger; it was artless, earnest, quite unreasonable, but never hypocritical. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... few steps toward the window and looks out.]—Ah, them's queer things here. Time don't stand still in this world. Little Karl, he never came to see us no more ... I can't make no objection. Maybe you was right. The lad couldn't ha' learned ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... immediately attained notoriety as "Goat Castle" and was so known over the United States from the manner in which the inmates lived. The strange fashion in which dogs, goats, chickens, or any animal on the place was made welcome in the drawing room was very queer and gave cause for ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... and covering mother's diaries, lies a square white volume, the first part of my "Experience Boke" before mentioned, and upon it two queer fat little pairs of bronze kid shoes, buttonless and much worn on the toes, telling a tale of feet that dragged and ankles that wobbled through inexperience in walking. Ah yes! I'm quite awake and the same Barbara, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the less he knew, the more interested he became. He plied me with drinks, perhaps thinking that the sweet liquor would loosen my tongue. Soon I began to feel a little queer and the room began to go round, taking with it the faces of the men and women. After this dizziness passed, I felt very happy indeed, and smiled at everybody in the room; and wanted to go and tell them all how much I liked them. But I did not dare trust my legs, they ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... a little at first, I remember, and whenever (to continue the musical simile) I could get in a comic song, or what I thought one, or some queer fantastic ditty about impossible birds and beasts and fishes and what not, I did not let the opportunity slip; while Keene, who had a very fine falsetto on the top of his chest register, would now and then warble, pianissimo, ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... dead man's personal effects, his baggage, his papers; there may be something there. His queer letter to Graumann—his desire that the latter's visit should be kept secret—a visit which apparently had no cause at all, except to get Graumann to the house, to get him to the house in a way that he should be seen coming, ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... character to myself. What manner of man am I?... It may be observed that no one asks me that question—admitted. But there, I'm dying, by Jove!—I'm dying, and at the point of death I really think one may be excused a desire to find out what sort of a queer fish one ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... "How queer you questions, Miss Anna! Of course she was sick; she drooped in the August heat; they didn't think she was very sick; the master gave her some medicine one night, and left her sleeping, quiet as a lamb, and before morning came ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... her enormous mainsail until her lee pontoon was buried to its gunwale, while the weather-shrouds were strained as taut as harp-strings; but Dick only smiled grimly as he heard the wind singing and piping through his rigging; he would scarcely have shortened sail for a hurricane just then. The queer-looking structure tore at racing speed across the smooth surface of the lagoon, shearing through it with a vicious hiss along her bends and a roaring wave under her lee bow, and so out to sea. Leslie was compelled to haul his wind for a short distance after shooting through ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... hospitals, and into buildings that had once been the counting-rooms of Carondelet-street cotton merchants, but were now become the prisons of soldiers in gray. One of these places, restored after the war as a cotton factor's counting-room again, had, until a few years ago, a queer, clumsy patch in the plastering of one wall, near the base-board. Some one had made a rough inscription on it with a cotton sampler's marking-brush. It commemorates an incident. Mary by some means became aware beforehand that ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... something very, very queer About a story-book, No matter what's the time of year, Nor where you ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... town, and the knight, though he has a pretty good opinion of the song he could make if he should try, is quite a stranger here. And now, as if for the very purpose of helping the knight, comes another young man, who turns out to be a prentice, and he begins arranging benches and chairs in some queer sort of way, while the looks that he casts at the maid and the looks she throws back at him show that they are not total strangers; and he tells them that these very poets and singers are to meet here ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... and bows, looking up at me with implicit brown eyes, so ageless in his wrinkled, monkey's face, like onyx. He loves to speak French, because then he feels grand. He has a queer, naive, ancient passion to be grand. As the remains of an impoverished family, he is not much better than a well-to-do peasant. But the old spirit is ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... on board, we determined on making for the nearest point of the Bahama Islands, and luckily reached a queer little island called Green Turtle Quay, on the extreme north of the group, where was a small English colony, without being seen by the cruisers. We had not been there long, however, before one of them came sweeping ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... have lost much of his sourness since he was laid out," he said to his barman as he passed. "He's never been inside this door since I've been here, and they say he hadn't been in for years before then. Queer old chap he is. I wonder if he is mixed up ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... child," the woman responded, a queer little smile lurking about her mouth. "Of course, I had to make a special effort for such an ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... but I paid it and rushed home to read. Many that had gone before had proved disappointing, and I was obliged to admit had contributed little towards my intellectual advancement; but this—this that I had heard about so long—not a queer phrase, not an outrage of any sort of kind, not even a new blasphemy, it meant nothing to me, that is to say, nothing but a hundred and fifty francs. Having thus rudely, and very pikelike, knocked my nose against the bottom—this ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... fiercely at the sheet of foolscap on which the mistakes were marked in red ink, he kept muttering: "It's past understanding, past understanding!" His face grew purple, and a swollen vein stood out on his forehead. A queer look in Jean's ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... guard allotted to each squad of fifteen men. Not many guards for so large a number of convicts—but enough. The weird gravity of Vulcan had taken care of that, and the flashlight things they always carried—queer lights that would instantly neutralize the insulating property of his clothing ...
— Vulcan's Workshop • Harl Vincent
... were confronting each other before the fireplace when she reached the lower floor, but the queer note of restraint in their voices meant nothing to her, until she heard her father ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... things, and best of all they organize the "S. F. B.," or Society for Feeding Birds, which spreads far and wide and is productive of most enjoyable acquaintances besides doing good service in the cause for which it was intended. Deeds of kindness to a queer old neighbor bring an unexpected reward, and the bright, wholesome book ends ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... Queer thoughts came into Tode's head with that suit of new clothes with which he presently arrayed himself. Not particularly new, either. Tom Roberts was in college, and they were his cast-off attire, worn before he, too, in ...
— Three People • Pansy
... Sam, he was acting queer lately. He was worried. Told me he saw something, and he was going to know for sure. He borrowed my switch-blade knife that my wife gave me. And he went out looking for something. Then I heard him a-running, and I looked up, ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... anything, and the agreeable surprise made her in an ecstasy; she could not speak, but her heart was full of happiness. I too was happy, and I believed that a great part of my happiness was caused by the knowledge that I had done a good deed. We are queer creatures all of us, whether we are bad or good. From that moment I gave my servants orders to lay the table for eight persons every day, and told them that I was only at home to Goudar. I spent money madly, and felt that I was within ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... we've got to burn, but I don't believe we have—now," said her husband. "That last explosion and the shift of the wind saved us. I appreciate your coming over, Tom," he went on. "We might have needed your help. It's queer there isn't some better, or more effective, way of fighting a fire than just pouring on a comparatively insignificant bit of water," he added, as, from what was now a safe distance, they watched the firemen using many ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... Tumbling Tom, a queer toy who never could stand up, because he was made in such a funny way that he always fell down. "I wonder if there is ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... how queer it is! Every move I'm making, Cosmic gravity's Center I am shaking; Oh, how droll to feel (As I now am feeling), Even as I reel, All the ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... at Black Tanks the expressman saw Texas Dick and Juan Brincos with our ponies," said Henry. "What a queer name that is!—Juan Brincos, John Jumper, or Jumping Jack, as nearly every ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... the corncob while Mr. Merrick stared at him in thoughtful silence. As a matter of fact, Uncle John was pleased with the fellow. A whimsical, irrational, unconventional appeal of this sort went straight to his heart, for the queer little man hated ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... queer, stern, cold voice you have, Florence! You are not half as interested as you ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... see falling tears, mither, If love's a sin in youth; He leuks to me, and talks wi' brither, But I know the secret truth. He's courted me the year, mither; Judge not the matter queer, mither; Ye're a' the while as dear, mither, As ye've been the Summer long. ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... some afternoon when it was not too hot, and have tea with her—any afternoon would do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been giving an invitation to tea in a barn it is probable that her manner would have been as distant, as casual, and as superb as when she suggested, with a queer sort of diffidence, that people might care to see the famous galleries and gardens of ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... by contrary winds on a little isle on the coast of Egypt, where they would have been starved if Menelaus had not managed to capture the old sea-god Proteus, when he came up to pasture his flock of seals on the beach, and, holding him tight, while he changed into every kind of queer shape, forced him at last to speak. By Proteus' advice, Menelaus returned to Egypt, and made the sacrifices to the gods he had forgotten before, after which he safely reached Sparta, on the day of Clytemnestra's obsequies. Just as they were ended, the ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sensible. Help me draw up this sofa, Ethel. (They pull sofa to the fire. Annie settles herself comfortably) I feel just like giving you a lecture, Virginia. You must make Edgar go out more. Anybody will get queer shut up here. The other day when mamma asked him to come to our party he wasn't more than half polite when he refused, and we were going to have Mr. Melrose Libbie to meet him too. Said his work would keep him at home! Now you know, Virginia, that poetry isn't ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... the same question, you fellow and Tom Cravath?" retorted Mr. Phipps, holding the two men with a level gaze. "And what's more I think your peculiar doings will bear looking into. There's something mighty queer about this business. I shouldn't be surprised if we found we'd solved a greater ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... I have," the other said briefly. The pale smile that went with the words caused the doctor a second indescribable sensation of uneasiness. Something was very wrong, something was very queer; he wondered now that he ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... he came to me, ghastly haggard and thin, and again asked me to leave his house, but I refused this zero-hour request. He shrugged and went back to his study. I watched him for a while and saw that he was studying that queer little book which so deeply affected him, and I again heard him utter those despairing words: "God ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, with its bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the manner seemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... lest his Vincennes vision of the non-existence of progress should have been mere madness. The success reassured him. 'Cette faveur du public, nullement brigue, et pour un auteur inconnu, me donna la premiere assurance veritable de mon talent.' He was, in fact, not 'queer,' but right; and he had seemed to be queer precisely because he was right. Now he had the courage. 'Je suis grossier,' he wrote in the preface to Narcisse, 'maussade, impoli par principes; je me fous de tous vous autres gens de cour; je suis un barbare.' There ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... sir," whispered Hockins, as the band drew nearer. "Some o' the naked black fellows look savage enough, no doubt, but there's a lot of 'em lightish brown in the skin, an' clothed in fine though queer garments. They carry themselves, too, like gentlemen. P'r'aps we'd better ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... came down that morning to see their mother, as they always did, a little after breakfast, Rosy's face wore a queer look. ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... his work accurately because it is not yet fully known, and still more because of its extraordinary form. Ho left thousands of pages of notes on everything and hardly one complete treatise on anything. He began a hundred studies and finished none of them. He had a queer twist to his mind that made him, with all his power, seek byways. The monstrous, the uncouth, fascinated him; he saw a Medusa in a spider and the universe in a drop of water. He wrote his notes in mirror-writing, from right to left; ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... kindnesses. He lived so secluded a life in the old family-house on the outskirts of Newport, (we were a Kentucky family,) as to raise the gossiping curiosity of all new residents, and to call forth the explanatory remark from the old settlers, that the Delanos were all queer people, but John Delano was the queerest of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... had a queer streak, although he has never said much, and though he was pardoned, it cost him everything he had. I can't help being sorry for Master Olof; I have always had a liking for him, even though he ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... has anything to do with Indians," she apologized, "only I want you to see him. He's such a character, so nice and untidy and queer!" ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... can talk with that young associate or yours, uncle," he would say, now and then, to Judge Bigelow, "and I can't just make him out. Is he stupid, or queer?" ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... thee married again! Here, too, is a catalogue of ills—Thomas, born February 12; Jane born Jan. 6; so they go on to the number of five. However, by death I stand credited but by one. Well, Margery, rest her soul! was a queer creature; when she was gone, I felt awkward at first, and being sensible that wishes availed nothing, I often wished for her return. For ten years more I kept my senses and lived single. Oh, blockhead, dolt Solomon! Within this twelvemonth thou ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... "Queer," murmured Rupert and reached for it again. "It's a good quality of linen and it's almost new." He held it to his nose. "That's oil ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... a queer boy that would not enjoy this, seeing that it all centred upon him, and Bert fully appreciated the important position he held for the time being. Then what could be more delightful than the sense of returning strength, of enlarging activity?—to find one's-self with a clearer head, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... turned a pointed nose up to the sky, sharp and clear as a fir top in the moonlight, and—ooooooo-ow-wow-wow! the terrible howl of a great white wolf tumbled down on the husky dogs and set them howling as if possessed. No doubt now of their queer actions which had puzzled me for hours past. The wild wolf had called and the tame wolves waked to answer. Before my dull ears had heard a rumor of it they were crazy with the excitement. Now every chord in their wild hearts ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... his readers. There are suggestions of Mrs. Radcliffe's method in others of his novels. In The Antiquary, before Lovel retires to the Green Room at Monkbar, he is warned by Miss Griselda Oldbuck of a "well-fa'urd auld gentleman in a queer old-fashioned dress with whiskers turned upward on his upper lip as long as baudrons," who is wont to appear at one's bedside. He falls into an uneasy slumber, and in the middle of the night is startled to see a green huntsman leave ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... knot of friends around him. "Blowin' hard as it has bin ever since we left England, it stands to reason that we must have pretty nigh got across the western sea to that noo land discovered by that man wi' the queer name—I can't ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... quite wild yet from your swoon; it is only the calkers stopping up the seams, one of the captain's queer whims they say; but how they are to dance to-night, those magnificos I mean, without ruining their slippers with this pitch, I cannot see! Thank Goodness! I belong to a church, and am not of this party, and don't care ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... mean? Who was the man in the hall, the man who had argued so loudly, who had struck so surely with that queer Indian knife? Where is ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... queer," said Bud, coming back to where Carl was still standing in the snow before the door, staring about in a bewildered way. "Gosh ding yer, Carl, I believe yer swiped my hat, an' if yer don't give it up I'll plant my toe whar ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... get them to realize a little more the divine possibilities of their womanhood, and instead of making it their ambition to figure as a weaker form of man, and become lawyers, stockbrokers, and other queer things the modern woman is striving after, to make it their ambition to ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish comfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but he would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those dreadful war-whoops. A queer being—very queer being; no respect for anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny." And he kept a fiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the cat, and so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where that man—and his family—was. And reckless. There never was anything ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "I have a queer feeling that something awful is going to happen to-night, Monty," she answered, trouble in her ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... queer, Lilly, that after all these centuries and centuries women are just beginning to—what did that woman on the program call it down at Cooper Union hall the other night—function in the government? Why has it ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... caches left by Franklin, in the hope that relief expeditions would find them. It would be as incongruous to attribute these things to the Eskimos as to attribute tablets and lettered stones to the aborigines of America. Some time I shall take up an expression that the queer-shaped mounds upon this earth were built by explorers from Somewhere, unable to get back, designed to attract attention from some other world, and that a vast sword-shaped mound has been discovered upon the moon—Just now ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... great interest in Snap's jews'-harp and repeatedly asked him for it. Finally the Mormon grudgingly lent it to a curious Indian, who in trying to play it went through such awkward motions and made such queer sounds that his companions set upon him and fought for possession of the instrument. Then Snap, becoming solicitous for its welfare, jumped into the fray. They tussled for it amid the clamor of a delighted circle. Snap, passing from jest to earnest, grew so strenuous ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... The queer letters and crankish proposals which come in every day are amazing. I have just added to my collection of diplomatic curiosities a letter from the editor of a Democratic paper in southern Illinois, addressed to me as ambassador at Mayence, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... very queer young man, whom his few friends called crazy on account of his lonely and ascetic manner of life, ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... they imagine looks like a gentleman, revolted against hearing this paper-collar woman, as they now called her, speak the long-dreamed-of, long-described phrases; and at night they did everything they dared to 'queer' her scene. They crowded round her, mugged, and tried to divert the attention of the house ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... queer case, anyway," Mrs. Colesworthy continued. "Mr. Kilbright has had a wife, but he never was a widower. Now, having been married, and never having been a widower, it would seem as if he ought not to ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... called! Of course I was obliged to call.... And yet would it not be more satisfactory if I had seen him?... I must have been in a horribly morbid state up at Hornsey.... Soon I must decide about my future. Soon I shall actually have decided!... Life is very queer!" She had as yet no notion whatever of what she would do with her liberty and her income and the future; but she thought vaguely of something heroic, grandiose, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... her," I said, "about her college work. She seems to be studying a queer lot of stuff—Social ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... like Rickeybockey very much, I never suspected that Jemima was caught with his long face; but there's no accounting for tastes. My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought it looked queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself by leaving off his glasses, ha—ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let's go and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... man who had first spoken to me, and appeared to have control over the rest. He took one up and examined it by the light of the fire, exclaiming, "Queer eating, I expect." ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... have what will be the lonesomest job this old earth has had on it, for four thousand years—except the one that began in Nazareth—the one the new President is going to have a chance to help and to move along in a way which little, old, queer, bent, eager St. Paul with his prayers in Rome and his sermons in Athens, ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... lowered her voice, "if he couldn't remember it himself! I've heard of such cases. Whenever I try to draw him out to talk about himself and what happened to him before you found him, it breaks him all up; seemingly gives him a back-set every time. He sort of slinks into himself in that queer, lost way—just like he was ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... read aloud part of "The Tempest," while I sewed. In the evening he told me about his early life in Raymond [Maine], and he gave me some of Mr. Bridge's famous wine. To-day my husband partly read "Two Gentlemen of Verona." I do not like it much. What a queer mood Shakespeare must have been in, to write it. He seems to be making fun. I wrote to Mrs. Follen, and made up a budget of a paper from my husband for her "Child's Friend." It was the incident of Mr. Raike's life, with regard to his founding of Sunday-schools, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He sees the good gifts and may not take them. Or, if he takes the one he wants the most—he loses all the rest. Fame and love and life—the great god Circumstance arranges all these little matters for us. . . . And mighty ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... a great many people who really believe in answering letters the day they are received, just as there are people who go to the movies at 9 o'clock in the morning; but these people are stunted and queer. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... that, he took to worrying about the Higher Criticism, and saying he couldn't go on teaching fairy-tales as history. I can't see that any good ever came of criticizing what our parents believed, and it's a queer time for Draper to criticize my belief just as I'm backing it to ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... in sweeter to the music of the valley? And look at God's fireplace, I cry, pointing to the west, where the sun is heaping the glowing cloud coals among the mountains. God's fireplace? says Tim, with a queer look in his eyes. Yes, say I, and the valley is the hearthstone. The mountains are the andirons. Over them, piled sky high, the cloud-logs are glowing, and never logs burned like those, all gold and red. Night after ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... continued: "He had a queer fad. He cultivated one of his finger-nails, that of the little finger of his left hand, with the greatest care. Just like a Chinese mandarin. At last the nail was fully a centimetre long, and made holes in all his gloves. Now, whenever a speck of dirt lodged in this nail, he was in the habit ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... day, being quite perplexed by her numerous suitors, she went to take a solitary walk and think the matter over, when by chance she came into the same wood where she had met the prince. There, all of a sudden, she thought she heard a queer running about and chattering underground. "Fetch me that spit," cried one; "Put some more wood on that fire," said another; and by and by the earth opened, showing a great kitchen filled with cooks, cooking a splendid banquet. They were all working merrily at their several ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... on, "ef she'll come. You heerd maaster? Well, he said purty much the same to her yestiddy; so her won't be frightened. Leastways, go an' say you'm comin' yoursel' to help nuss; 'cos ef you won't I'll nuss 'un alone, an' ef that's the case, you'm a queer pair o' Christians, as the Devil said to the ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the lights turned on, he hid under the dress of this queer man. He lay very, very still, for he had been taught to be still when danger was near. He heard voices. The father ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... the jungle, the queer-looking men wandered aimlessly, moaning and wailing. They were lost. Suddenly the blacks appeared. Two of the strangers, glad of the company of any sort of human beings, smiled and gesticulated pleasantly, making it plain that they were hungry, tired, and frightened, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... canes, at nightfall, the natives stole peeps at a small portable altar; a crucifix to correspond, and gilded candlesticks and censers. Their curiosity carried them no further; nothing could induce them to worship there. Such queer ideas as they entertained of the hated strangers. Masses and chants were nothing more than evil spells. As for the priests themselves, they were no better than diabolical sorcerers; like those who, in old times, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... chapter xlix 15 THE HYENA > There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... doctrines had a quaint absurdity on the lips of this mild, little New England woman. Milly, not having lived in circles where the fundamental relations of life were discussed with such philosophical frankness, was puzzled. The Reddons must be "queer" ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... so universally gone abroad as they do now, and "the proper thing" among the "well born" was not so distinctly laid down in the code of the elite. The accent and manners that now mark "good form" seemed queer, not to say bouffe, to even the first circles of home society, and the first disciples of "Anglomania" had a very hard time polishing the raw material. The home life of the Boones was something better and sincerer ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... enough to make us look queer," answered Mrs. Pepper. Her eyes shone too! "Polly will tell ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... you seek the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer story or two of estates that have been lost and recovered. But, to tell you the truth, I think you might do with your Muse of Fiction, as you call her, as many an honest man does with his own sons ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... consider it, in some sense, a story of eugenics, but that its outlook is emotional rather than scientific. Yet the Pomfrets, as a result of family pride and over-specialization, had become a sufficiently queer lot to warrant a normal girl in any violence of house-breaking to be free of them. Therein of course lies the cleverness of the book; it is full of atmosphere, and the atmosphere is full of dust, Pomfret dust. You can feel how heavy to rebellious lungs must have been the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... mother came home with a buffalo calf. They threw down the dead calf, and ran after the queer thing. He had long hair upon a round head. His face was round, too. He ran and climbed up into ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... in a queer voice. And at the sound Rosa looked up at him sharply; but she could see nothing, for his ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... records the life of this flying wonder, this masterpiece of Spanish priestcraft; no mural tablet—in this land of commemorative stones—has been erected to perpetuate the glory of his signal achievements; no street is called after him. It is as if he had never existed. On the contrary, by a queer irony of fate, the roadway leading past his convent evokes the memory of a misty heathen poet, likewise native of these favoured regions, a man whose name Joseph of Copertino had assuredly never heard—Ennius, of whom I ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... he was too keen on money to resign because his silly pride was hurt. But to my surprise, he informed me that he'd come to 'hand in his papers,' as he called it. So much the worse for his pocket and the better for mine! Only it struck me as d—d queer, considering Corkran's character. I wanted to ask if he'd spit out any venom ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... it sounds queer, I know, and worse than anything I've ever done, yet—it isn't as bad as it sounds. But, but—well, I may just as well out with it. Mr. Poussette ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Sikkim Bhoteeas had assembled here, all strangers to me: I certainly thought the concourse unusually large, and the previous conduct to Campbell, strange, rude, and quite unintelligible, especially before the Tibetans. But the Bhoteeas were always a queer, and often insolent people,* [Captain Pemberton during his mission to Bhotan was repeatedly treated with the utmost insolence by the officials in that country (see Griffith's Journal). My Sirdar, Nimbo, himself ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... travel across the continent shortly after the first plans were published, he was amused to see all along the route, here and there in back-yard fruit-trees, shade-trees, and in forest-trees, queer little shanties built by the boys, high ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... queer company, Andre," was the first thing she said to him. "Or else I am mistaken in thinking that your companion was Mlle. Binet of the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... occupations and thoughts, these insects, like daily cark and care, did not seem one whit to annoy him. It was a goodly sight to see this serene, cool and ripe old philosopher, who by sharp inquisition of man in the street, and then long meditating upon him, surrounded by all those queer old implements, charts and books, had grown at last so wondrous wise. There he sat, quite motionless among those restless flies; and, with a sound like the low noon murmur of foliage in the woods, turning over the leaves of some ancient and tattered folio, with a binding dark ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... wouldn't refuse the acquaintance of my mother's cousin the Duke of Belgravia because some of the rents he gets are earned in queer ways. You wouldn't cut the Archbishop of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners among their tenants. Do you remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... before; here she had lived her life of spinsterhood, save for an occasional visit to London; and here she hoped to die, although at present she kept Death at a safe distance by hygienic means and dietary treatment. The house was a queer survival of three centuries, with a pattern of black oak beams let into a white-washed front. Its roof shot up into a high gable at an acute angle, and was tiled with red clay squares, mellowed by Time to the ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... one could aptly call a man. But thou'rt endowed with somewhat too much heart! How queer thou art, cross-grained and impish shrewd! A spirit too, thou couldst not be more shrewd. If all I say thou dost not think is true, In secret just a minute search pursue; For then thou'lt know if I love ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... were taciturn and irresponsive. Betty's wonderful gray eyes looked out of the window at the passing landscape, which Sir John was quite sure she did not see; Sylvia and Hester were absorbed in watching their sister. Sir John had a queer kind of feeling that there was something wrong with the girls' dress; that very coarse black serge, made with no attempt at style; the coarse, home-made stockings; the rough, hobnailed boots; the small tam-o'-shanter caps, pushed far ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... queer," Harry often repeated. "The presence of an unknown being in the mine seems impossible, and yet there can be no doubt about it. Does someone besides ourselves wish to find out if a seam yet exists? Or, rather, has he attempted to destroy what remains of the Aberfoyle ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... that hour when all is quiet Sang he songs of noise and riot, In a voice so loud and queer That I ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... more," cried Patty Hirst, surveying with deep interest the large new box which stood by the side of the chest of drawers in her bedroom; "just one day! How dreadfully quickly the time has come! I feel quite queer when I think about it. I can scarcely believe that before the end of the week both I and my luggage will be a whole hundred miles away, and settled at Morton Priory. I do wonder how I shall ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... me, Andrew,' he says, in his dazed way. 'But you know, doubtless,' says he, with one of his queer bows, touchin' the banged old felt he sticks on the back of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... rowing!" the boat came to a stand, and her people to a man stared at me with their chins upon their shoulders as if I had been a fiend. It was plain as a pikestaff that they were frightened, and that the superstitions of the forecastle were hard at work in them whilst they viewed me. They looked a queer company: two were negroes, the others pale-faced bearded men, wrapped up in clothes to the aspect of scarecrows. The fellow who steered had a face as long as a wet hammock, and it was lengthened yet to the eye by a beard like a ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... long yellow ear bob dat'ud be tetchin right long side she shoulder. I al'ays look a'ter de Missus en she chillun. Wash dey feet en comb dey hair en put de chillun to bed. But child, some white folks is queer 'bout t'ings. Dey watch yuh gwine 'bout yuh work en den dey'll wan' yuh to do sumptin fa dem. De ole man take me 'way from helping de Missus en send me out to plow corn en drap peas. I wuz shame too cause I ne'er lak fa he to treat ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... farmers all walk the same way. But really, Rose,—you're getting used to that name, ain't you?—you ought to get yourself over it as quick as you can; you ain't going to have no lady-friends in the factory if you're going to be queer like that." ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... Meanwhile the Consulate had received many valuables, deposited there for safety. The morning following the departure of the ships we noticed a large number of boxes in our courtyard and also several sheep tied to the flag-staff. For a time we could not understand the meaning of this queer collection and were compelled to assign it to the usual incomprehensibilities of Chinese life. Mr. Gouverneur went in search of our interpreter, hoping that he could explain the situation, but to our surprise he had fled. We learned that he stood in great awe ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... queer that in so pretty a house, where almost everything was neat and well kept, the floors should be dirty and the ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the ticket-collector. "It would be a queer thing for me to be bothering you about a ticket, and me just after tying a bit of cord round as nasty a leg as ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... "It's queer what an awful amount of heat a squaw can get out of a kettle of hot water, thought the suffering boy. I'll wager some of the heat is due to the herbs ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... very sorry, Gearge," said Abel, who had a consciousness that the miller's man was ill-pleased in spite of his civility. "It be so long since I was at school, and it be such a queer word. Do 'ee think she can have spelt ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... grisette, wiping with the back of her hand the tip of her little nose, down which a tear was trickling, "you may tell me that you did not know where I had taken up my quarters. It's a queer story, I can tell you. When I say queer," added Rose-Pompon, with a deep sigh, "it is quite the contrary—but no matter: I need not trouble you with that. One thing is certain; you are getting better—and you and Cephyse will not do such a thing again. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... scarcely know what to say: he has got queer notions in his head—wrote a book to prove that all words came originally from the earth—who knows? Words have roots, and roots live in the earth; but, upon the whole, I should not call him ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... day, isn't it, Judge Wade?" I asked with the greatest interest, which I didn't really feel, in the weather; but what could I think of to say? A woman is apt to keep the image of a good many of the grand men she sees passing around her in queer niches in her brain, and when one steps out and speaks to her for the first time it is confusing. Of course I have known the judge and his mother all my life, for she is one of Aunt Adeline's best friends, but I had a feeling from ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in his chair. He showed an animal interest in his meals, and a greedy animal enjoyment of eating and drinking as much as he could get—and that was all. "This morning," the honest gardener said to me at parting, "we thought he seemed to wake up a bit. Looked about him, you know, and made queer signs with his hands. I couldn't make out what he meant; no more could the doctor. She knew, poor thing—She did. Went and got him his harp, and put his hand up to it. Lord bless you! no use. He couldn't ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... "You queer little person," he said affectionately. "Tell me instead about yourself. What is a day like at your place of business? Do you mind—it helps to concentrate my attention—if I hold your hand whilst ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge |
