"Tomfoolery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and limply dropped into comfortable chairs in my library, with the air of having made martyrs of themselves in the great cause of charity. But they did not deceive me. They originated all that tomfoolery for ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... your concern. Find him, and give the chit into his own hand, and be back without any tomfoolery, or by thunder I'll lay a ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... all this devil's tomfoolery? Explain it to me. Are you mad?" His suppressed feelings overmaster him. He gives way to ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out, angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to be ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... tomfoolery has possessed you, mother, I'd like to know? What's the use of scarin' folks half to death? As if we hadn't had enough things happen without ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... knowledge enough, he said, to teach the boys how to make and save money, yet not enough to tempt them to spend it foolishly in travel, libraries, pictures, statues, arbors, fountains, and such costly trumpery and expensive tomfoolery. ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... had begun to grow red and angry. "I don't know whether you are playing a game with us, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said he. "If you know anything, you can surely say it without all this tomfoolery." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "No—this tomfoolery. I don't believe you have to earn your living. I'd lay a wager that you are doing it as a stunt to vary the monotony of a dull existence, but there are other and better ways of doing that, ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... S. Minister in Peking some thirty years ago, he said to the writer "Just look at this tomfoolery!" holding up the fashion plates representing the new dress for the diplomatic service of Japan. Time has proved that he was wrong, and that the Japanese were right in adopting a new uniform, when they wished to fall in line with nations of the West. With their old shuffling habiliments and the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... my son! But I tell you I'm tired of his jokes. I mean to make him understand that his days of tomfoolery are over! Do you realize it—here he is, twenty-one years of age, when he should be coming into possession of the fortune his mother left him—and he's tying fire-crackers to the tails of goats! And I—I am trustee of the money, and have to decide ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... and the horse too; the whole three of them. But there's that bit of meat at the end of the performance, so I suppose I may as well appear "to come the docile highly trained beast," and go through with the tomfoolery and collar it. "Snarl?" Do I? Of course I do. It's the one outlet I have for my feelings. Who wouldn't snarl under the circumstances? Fancy, me, the "King of Beasts" (it sounds like chaff), dropping off a platform, at a given signal, on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... THAT," I put in. "It was not so at all. I grant you that my behaviour was bad—I fully confess that it was so, and make no secret of the fact. I would even go so far as to grant you that my behaviour might well be called stupid and indecent tomfoolery; but, MORE than that it was not. Also, let me tell you that I am very sorry for my conduct. Yet there is one circumstance which, in my eyes, almost absolves me from regret in the matter. Of late—that is to say, for the last two or three weeks—I have been feeling not at all well. That is to ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... he had thought all this tomfoolery, but while Bubbles had been speaking to, or at, his sister, he had felt amazed, as well as ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... "'What tomfoolery is this,' said he; yet he yielded to me, and soon I garnered three of his melodies; but I would not let Cul de Jatte wot the thing I meditated. 'Show not fools nor bairns unfinished work,' saith the byword. And by this time 'twas night, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "What tomfoolery is this?" he demanded, looking angrily round. "You seem to forget, all of you, that you come here to work, and not to play. If you want to play you can go somewhere else. There!" So saying he passed into his private room, slamming the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... shape "at camping out," with an irrepressible chuckle. "Often thought I'd like to try it," he said, and invited us to help him make up a camping party. "Be a change for us city chaps," he suggested; and then exploding at what he called his "tomfoolery," set the dining-net all a-quivering ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... stop shouting and jumping about for just ten seconds, and give me a chance to observe that I am your maiden aunt from Devonshire, all this tomfoolery can be avoided." ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... boy to speak," and if I would do so, I could come to his house some Saturday night and stay over Sunday. He said that the boy was "a perfect little case to carry on and folks didn't know whether he would develop into a condemb fool or a youmerist." So he wanted a piece of one of them tomfoolery kind for the little cuss to speak the last ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... those of the man he is trying to pass, like the mirror pantomime in Hanlon's Fantasma. Finally, both come to a standstill, facing each other, and one tries to execute a quick flank movement to the left. Just at this moment the other suddenly remembers that he would have avoided all this tomfoolery if he had only kept to the right, and tries to make good on this hypothesis. The result is that they bump into each other violently and begin side-stepping again. After another round or two of Terpsichorean gymnastics one of them breaks through the other's guard and escapes and each ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... extreme commercial depression created against the previously omnipotent Democrats, the Whig candidate for the Presidency was successful. This was General Harrison, a respected soldier of the last war, who was glorified as a sort of Cincinnatus and elected after an outburst of enthusiastic tomfoolery such as never before or since rejoiced the American people. But President Harrison had hardly been in office a month when he died. Some say he was worried to death by office seekers, but a more prosaic cause, pneumonia, can ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... and that they looked to me to help them to carry out their promise. As I'm talking to you here familiarly, I'll go on to say that my husband, who had retired, and was in an adjoining room, raised up on his elbow and called out, "Oh! that's all tomfoolery!" I remember I answered him something like this: "Well, husband, the men have been in the tomfoolery business a long time; perhaps the Lord is going to call us into partnership with them." I said no more. The next morning my brother-in-law, Colonel ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... guineas for absolute tomfoolery! 'Item 2. To diagnosing Aunt Maria and failing to find anything wrong and recommending appendicitis.... ' Shall we say a guinea for Aunt Maria's put-up job? I ought to get my money back since nothing was found in Aunt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... they all say," scoffed Grimm. "Seekers after the truth! And madly eager to believe everything they hear or read except the commonsense truth. And you, a level-headed Scotchman, old enough to be your own father, actually gulp down such tomfoolery! Next we'll have you chasing around the streets at night, looking with a dark lantern ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... knot, and Injuns around, and you with naught but a scalping knife? 'Tis not bravery but tomfoolery," said the elder Letitia. "I'll warrant you stole out without the knowledge of Goodman Cephas Holbrook and Mistress Holbrook, and they having taken you in as they did and given you food and shelter, with nine of their own ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the heralds stood at attention in the hall. While Clarence and his father struggled into their great-coats, neither of them in a very good temper, Mr. Stimpson being annoyed at postponing his dinner for what he called "tomfoolery," and Clarence secretly sulky because his parent could not be induced to see the propriety of going up to change ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Alfred Burton, is first how long this tomfoolery is to last, and secondly what it all means?" Ellen began, with her elbows upon the table and a reckless disregard of neighbors. "Haven't we lived for ten years, husband and wife, at Clematis Villa, and you as happy and satisfied with ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to any such tomfoolery!" She Yeh demurred. "She hasn't snapped her hands, so bid her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... this tomfoolery is a great waste of time," continued the lady, glancing up and down the jury disparagingly. "Talk—talk—talk! When all the ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... Tomfoolery Convention, now being held in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their woman's rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... said roughly, "perhaps you will be good enough to explain what is the meaning of all this tomfoolery." ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... "Why, what tomfoolery is this?" said a highly-pitched voice; and Roy tried to snatch off his helmet as he caught sight of the secretary standing ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... "This daring tomfoolery! If he'd come back to old Rosecrans with his story about a few pieces of artillery posted on a ridge, Rosy would want to know why the d——l he didn't find out what ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... uttered a low scream. She had cut her finger slightly and, although she didn't usually pay any attention to such trifles, she shook her hand back and forth. I wanted to examine the cut, but she beckoned to me to continue my work. 'There is no end to your tomfoolery,' the old man grumbled; and, stepping before the girl, he said in a loud voice, 'What I was going to do hasn't been attended to at all,' and with a heavy tread he went out of the door. Then I started to make apologies for the day before, but she interrupted me and said, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... then. He's blown enough wind in her to get up a hurricane, and I expect nothing else but he'll get the old machine so chock full that she'll blow back at him some day and burst his brains out, and all along of your tomfoolery. You're a pretty mother, you are! You'd better go and join some asylum for feeble-minded ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... his duty to sacrifice himself to the interests of his children. She endeavoured to separate him from his friends and to make him forsake his party and his fidelity to his ideas. She made fun of what she called his tomfoolery, which prevented him from turning his position to account. Every day there were fresh attacks and reproaches until he was fairly haunted by them; it was the terrible battle of all that is most prosaic against the conscience of a Deputy of the Opposition. Finally, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... all along, of course," said the foreman. "But I never paid any attention to them. I just quit, like Mr. Sinclair, when they started all that tomfoolery about wearing ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... at all," he muttered, with a touch of impatience in his voice. "And now, what about those tickets? I suppose, Basil, you're dying to see all this tomfoolery?" ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... "The particular kind of tomfoolery you are up to doesn't matter. We needn't quarrel. I've another proposition to put before you—much more to your fancy, I think. You like this Mr. Randall ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... in a dudgeon, 'if that is all your invention can tell me, good-bye. You told me you were able to make gold. Instead, you make foolish prophecies. I'll put no money into such tomfoolery. I'm a practical man,' and with that he stamped out of ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... but impecunious baronet should, and to step into the living which is fattening for you, then I must refuse to take any further responsibility for your future. Here is a thousand pounds; it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for your musical tomfoolery if you insist, and then—get what living you can.' Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what does my governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine—God bless him!—he's got no sense of the respect a father owes to his offspring. ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... "Meaning that tomfoolery of this sort never pays. I know. I've done it myself in my time. If I were you, I should pull up and try some less expensive hobby than that of mending broken men. The pieces are always chipped and never stick, and the chances are that you'll ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "I won't have any tomfoolery and expense. If she chooses to marry a clerk in an office, she shall marry him as clerks ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... guess I sha'n't give up my nice room for any such tomfoolery as that. I guess I would just as soon have red roses on a yellow ground as peacocks on a blue; but there's no use talking, you couldn't have seen straight. How could such ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Dennis," said our host; "we shall have a crowd collecting if you go on with this tomfoolery. Send him off." ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Nekhludoff got up and went out into the corridor, with the intention of not returning to the court. Let them do what they liked with him, he could take no more part in this awful and horrid tomfoolery. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... I wore a plume and gold braid at the funeral of the mayor of this town. I'm first-assistant buyer and I propose to become general manager. I'm a respectable citizen trying to settle down to a respectable home, and, by God! no woman tomfoolery is going to bamboozle ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst |
