"Nervy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day it was impossible to look over the trench, as we were only fifty yards from the Germans, so we considered it advisable not to exhibit too much curiosity in case our health suffered thereby. At night time the Germans use star-shells to illuminate the proceedings, and they always seem nervy and think we are going to attack their trench. If we start firing a little more than usual they think it is the signal for an attack, and they blaze away like fury. We had a good example of this on our ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... her calm eye, "you are the most nervy detective, barring none, that it has ever been my pleasure to meet. I ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... at any moment; everybody was nervy: and each Battalion as it came out of the Line thanked its lucky stars that they had escaped the first onslaught. To even the ignorant strategist it was patent that either side could, by a preconceived attack, penetrate a mile ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... your girls, sir," said the clerk respectfully. "It's a pretty nervy little bunch! You must ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the woman who was obviously his queen. His voice rose in shrill disagreement and his scowl was as fierce as the Zara's. Threatening her, he was, the nervy devil. He clenched his fists and raised his arms in an angry gesture, pacing the floor in his fury and thrusting out a pugnacious chin while he raved. This Zara woman rose higher in her cushions, and the look that flashed from those ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... and get a bill on London from Rothschilds drawn to the order of F. A. Warren direct. Could this be done it would, of course, make it appear that I had intimate relations with the Rothschilds, and as a minor consideration we could use the Rothschild acceptance—a pretty nervy thing to do, as Sir Anthony de Rothschild, the head of the London house, whose name we proposed to offer, was a director of the Bank of England, and would have to pass his own paper for discount—that is, paper bearing his ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... nervy men! oh, grand old Grizzly, how I see you now! Cattle-keepers and cattle-killer ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... He had been through it all himself. Every man has it the first time that he goes on any of these dangerous duties. I can frankly say I disliked the listening-post duty that first time. Nothing happened of course. There was no killing, but it was nervy work. Later, in common with other fellows, I was able to go on listening-post with the same nonchalance as my first coster friend. It lies in whether one is used to the thing or not. Nothing comes easy at first, especially in the ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... there is only one thing to do, and it is a little rough." She asked me what it was. I told her that I would cut a hole in the ice and put her feet in the river if she would consent to it. She was a nervy little woman, and laughingly told me to "go at it." I went ahead with blankets and the hatchet and cut a hole in the ice, and the driver carried her and emersed her feet in water 15 inches deep. She pluckily stood ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... three boys—Jimmy Vail, Joe Willis, an' thet little Cairns boy—a nervy kid! they, with Cairns leadin', tried to buck thet herd round to the pocket. It was a wild, fool idee. I couldn't do nothin'. The boys got hemmed in between the steers an' the wash—thet they hedn't no chance to see, either. Vail an' Willis was run down right before ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... to omit from the list of these favorites an author who was then beginning to have his greatest vogue, and who somehow just missed of being a very great one. We were all reading his jaunty, nervy, knowing books, and some of us were questioning whether we ought not to set him above Thackeray and Dickens and George Eliot, 'tulli quanti', so great was the effect that Charles Reade had with our generation. He was a man who stood at the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... what she can do, but I never went to a seeress in my life until after we had that big cave. I'm a timber man, you see, and sometimes I take contracts to catch up dangerous ground; and the best men in the world when it comes to that work are these old-country Cousin Jacks. They're nervy and yet they're careful and so I always hire 'em; but when we were doing this work down in the stope of the Last Chance, they began talking about Mother Trigedgo. It seems she'd told the fortune of a boy or two—they were all of them boarding at her house—and she was so ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... Yesterday I learned some detail about the conduct of affairs the other day—enough to make me very anxious indeed that no tired or nervy leaders should be sent out with the new troops. So I have sent ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... fetch 'em along," said the compliant and nervy captain, "and don't stand thar' no'ratin' about 'em—'ceptin' liver," he added. "I hain't got so low down yit 's to ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... time is perhaps a little more nervy than the day. You get your head up and look about, and see the flat dim country with its ruined houses and its lumps of stuff that are dead bodies and its long vague lines of sandbags, and the searchlights going like white ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... man, laughing loudly. "Well, that's one on me! I must say you're a nervy young party. So you thought I ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... a nervous or timid nature she might have fainted at once. But she was brave and nervy and she struggled hard for her freedom, seeking to cast off the blanket which was smothering her and giving her a sensation ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... morning that upset me rather. It is silly of me to take any notice, and I shouldn't if I were well. I've been wretchedly nervy lately, and it makes me ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... suspended between two trees. "Get something for mine, while you're at it, Bess. I think they use bromide, or something like that. But I doubt if the boys would have any. They don't seem to have a nerve in their bodies, though goodness knows they're 'nervy' enough at other times. Pardon the colloquialism," she murmured ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the hot breath of men's passions—fierce, dominating, challenging. Love, hatred, prejudices and contempt—all were portrayed on de Marmont's mobile face: they glowed in his dark eyes and breathed through his quivering nostrils. Now he rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, his nervy fingers played a tattoo against his teeth, clenched together like those of some young feline creature which sees its prey coming along and is snarling at ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... of Martius: before him He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie, Which being advanc'd, declines, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... it was lying in front of the Court-House, from the steeple of which some sixty or seventy feet high, the flags of our signal-corps were most actively wagging. It occurred to me that those signal-men were mighty nervy fellows. They were a beautiful mark for the rebel batteries, which were evidently doing their best to knock them out. The steeple was a plain, old-fashioned affair, having an open belfry, which seemed to be supported by four upright posts or timbers. I saw one of those uprights knocked out ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... that," Collins approved, "and when I sell the mule you'll go along as part of the turn, or I miss my guess. And it will be some turn. There'll be at least two more like you, who'll have to be nervy and know how to fall. Get busy. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... the kid, smilin'. 'Drop!' cries Speed. An' Jacqueline shot down like a blazing star—whir! swish! splash! All over! An' that there nervy kid a floatin' an' a sportin' like a minnie-fish at t'other end o' the tank! Oh, gosh, but it was grand! ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... believe, either, that the telegraph officials had been nervy enough to resort to police protection. That would be to bring the matter into the courts, and he did not think those who were opposing him ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... farmer. "That's why I was interested in you. I saw the Thanksgiving game at Gridley last year. Great game nervy lot of boys, with all their sand about them. There was one fellow in particular, I remember, who broke doctor's orders and jumped into the game at the last minute. He saved the game for Gridley, I heard. I'd like ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... Katahdin were bare-headed or cloud-capped, it would be better to blunder upward than lounge all day in camp and eat Sybaritic dinners. We longed for the nervy climb. We must have it. "Up!" said tingling blood to brain. "Dash through the forest! Grasp the crag, and leap the cleft! Sweet flash forth the streamlets from granite fissures. To breathe the winds that smite the peaks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... was glad when they reached Aunt Saxon's door and Mark picked him up as he used to do when he was just a little kid, and carried him up to his room. Carried him up and undressed him, while Saxy heard the story from the doctor's lips, and laughed and cried and laughed again. The nervy little kid! He would always be a "little kid" to Saxy, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... much stump about Elma, this journey!" returned Cornelia, cheerily. "There's nothing to it but a little shock to the constitootion. Elma's constitootion is nervy. What she needs is re-pose. Perfect re-pose! If I were you, I'd send up a note to-morrow, and stay quietly at home. It would naturally upset her some to see you, and she'd recuperate quicker ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a nervy hand, A wrist as strong as a sapling oak, Buried deep in the Malverri sand— To laugh at that, is a sorry joke. Never again your iron grip Shall I feel in my shrinking palm— Tom, Tom, I see your trembling lip; All ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... "No—I was always nervy and shy and repressed. But this is a vicious circle, don't you see? A thing is called a vicious circle in medicine when cause and effect are so closely linked that you can't tell which is which. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm. Lenehan's yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last time ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... do, my dear. I can bear it," and her expression of mournful resignation tickled Diana more than ever. On the day before they reached Bulawayo, however, when hour after hour brought very little but scrub and sand, she and her aunt were very nervy and irritable, and only Meryl, with her dreams and ideals, continued quietly interested. When they reached Bulawayo matters did not improve much, because a sand-storm was blowing and it was almost impossible to go out. Mr. Pym packed them off to the Victoria Falls as soon as possible, and remained ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page |
