"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way along the south shore of the great lake, did they talk of Paymaster Bullen and wonder what had become of him. Donald was inclined to believe that he had either returned to New York, or still remained where they had left him; but Christie only smiled, and said Bullen was such a queer fish that there was no predicting what he might ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... wouldn't quite do that. Not a breath as to any unfortunate conditions anywhere. But on every deck, wherever equals met, the fearful plight of the queer folk down nearest the water was softly debated. Distressing to feminine sympathy was the necessity of instant burials, first revealed up-stairs by that woman's cry of agony down on the lower gangway. But masculine nerve explained that ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... glance up at him with a queer look as he came in from these excursions, drop his head over his task again, look busy and miserable, and all ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... brigade to some of the blushing damsels whom she had, in her judgment, decided would make good wives for them and also be a blessing in their new homes. Various amusing stories were flying about for a long time in reference to some of the queer misadventures and mixing up of the parties concerned ere everything was satisfactorily arranged and everybody satisfied. Among a people so primitive and simple in their habits this could quickly ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... and a queer sort of feeling came over him. "Well, there's no ice cream soda place around here, either," and ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... Cooney parlor in the vein of one emerging from strange adventures in undiscovered countries. This queer feeling would hardly last over the solid threshold of Home, whose atmosphere was almost notoriously uncongenial to eccentricities of that sort. But it did linger now, as Cally trod somewhat dreamily over streets ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... way of life is strange and by whom it is not understood. It is natural for us to like people who do things in the way in which we like them done. We are attracted to those who seem the same as ourselves, and turn (perhaps unconsciously) from those who seem queer and different. People of other lands are the same. When we see someone whose complexion, features, clothing, language, manners, and customs are different from our own, our natural reaction is to stare, or laugh, or both. It is not natural to be attracted to those who are different ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... Bowelt is an honest man," his Highness continued, "he will give to the demand of these furibund petitioners a very queer reception." ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... really," she replied, looking away over the harbor. "It is so queer—marrying a Chinese woman like that. How will he ever get along with her or ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... 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 we think of lettered ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... tall, about middle age, rather gray, wears blue glasses, and never has anything to say to anybody; a queer sort of fellow." ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... there was young blood to summon from outside; and to set this blood seething before the eyes of visiting celebrities in the arts and letters was her dearest wish. She had more than one spare bedroom, of course; and the Eminent and the Queer were always welcome for a sojourn of a week or so, whether they came to read papers and deliver lectures or not. She was quite as well satisfied when they didn't. If they would but sit upon her wide veranda in spring or autumn, or before her big open fireplace in winter and "just talk," she would ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... at dinner, or that glass of ginger-beer, Or these strong cheroots, I know not, but I feel a little queer. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... pigeon-pie; she said, 'No, I thank ye, Solomon,' and passed away. That I should ever live to see any one pass away from a pigeon-pie of my making! Sir Willmott Burrell, he wo'n't eat, but calls for wine and strong waters in his dressing-room: it's a queer bridal! Ah! there's one of the Lady Cromwell's women, perhaps she will eat; it is heart-breaking to think that such food as this"—and he cast his eye over a huge assemblage of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... This queer trait in Browning, his inability to keep a kind of demented ingenuity even out of poems in which it was quite inappropriate, is a thing which must be recognised, and recognised all the more because as a whole he was a very perfect ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... he's a fool," returned Mrs. Peachey, reflecting how wonderfully she had "managed" the great man, "but, of course, he's queer—all ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the old frontiersman, he had babbled inconsequently about the sea. Mixing brandy with the last of the sediment water, Wayland got him into the saddle. There were queer splotches of blood under the skin on the backs of his hands; but when the brandy relieved his fatigue, he stopped babbling of ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... that such universal drabness was too bad to be true; one caught touches of manipulation, times in which these poor Captives seemed bound less by the chains of circumstance than by the wires of Mr. WALPOLE. The queer result was that I found myself believing in his compellingly human characters, but protesting that such unbroken misfortune could not, or need not, have encompassed them. To take an example, when Maggie's "tipsy" uncle was shown ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... you see that dress? It was the same we saw on the queer girl who stared at us so! Maybe—she's crazy or something. I'm sure I could tell that was the same white dress with the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... allow; but then, so too was her beauty. At all events, he dared no more, not having the courage, though all the will, to linger, and was turning off when a queer thing ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... made all the haste he could, riding on the basket which had been given him by his friend. His queer boat seemed to go through the water of its own accord, and the distance was much shorter than he had expected, for in a few hours he caught sight of the gate and the roof of the Sea King's Palace. ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... secure only as long as their performances excited jaded appetites as a novelty. If dwarfs and monstrosities staled; if dancing girls palled; if gladiators wearied; if there were no new games invented—then bring in a poet or artist—some queer fellow who had discovered something that he called truth or beauty, and let him amuse. But if he does not amuse, or if he wear out his welcome, away with him. In the history of our own civilization, as our ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... queer native traditions and legends, the origin of her name must indeed prove an instructive object lesson—intermingling as it does the austerity and reproach of the North with the quaint domestic charm of the further South. The ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... Cecil delightedly. A thoroughly well-arranged meal would not have given him half the pleasure that this queer ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... "I like the power; I like the fun; I like the fuss; and above all I like the money. I almost like the people who make the fuss and pay the money. Almost. But they're a queer gang,—an amazingly queer gang!" ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... eyes are a little queer, but if you've ever noticed it, niggers' eyes are often yellow. The people on the place call him 'Cat-Eye Mose.' You needn't be afraid of him," he added ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... the interior, it has an exceedingly bare and stript appearance; for, altho' there is good, solid stonework in the walls, the whole has been washed a foolish, Philistine white. The Romanesque of the architectural is said to be of particular interest to connoisseurs, and the queer archaic capitals must certainly attract the notice even ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... bearing in mind. We ourselves are ever a restless, bustling, far-wandering folk, great lovers of fiction and travel, who not only carry forth the English language into the uttermost parts of the earth, to be moulded in strange dialects to queer uses, but also bring back fresh ideas and incidents, and various aspects of a many-sided world-ranging life. If, as has been often asserted, literature be the collective expression of the ideas and aspirations, the tastes, feelings, and habits of the generation which produces ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... no pseudo "Queen Anne" hybrid, with lowering, top-heavy projections like scowling eyebrows over squinting eyes; neither mongrel Renaissance, nor feeble, sickly, imitation Elizabethan facades, and Tudor towers; none of the queer, composite, freakish impertinences of architectural style, which now-a-day do duty as the adventurous vanguard, the aesthetic vedettes "making straight the way," for the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it puzzled him to explain how there came to be gold on the cabin floor. His surprise deepened when, a few days later, he found another "prospect" in the same place. His two sweepings had yielded perhaps a pennyweight of the precious metal—enough to set him to thinking. It seemed queer that in the neighborhood of Black Jack's bunk he could find no ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... think that was queer, the day before Thanksgivin'," said Mrs. Little. She was examining the turkey critically. "I guess it'll do," she declared finally. That was her highest expression of approbation. "Well, I rayther thought you'd think so," rejoined ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... he is. That's queer. All the better for us. You might get a bit finer, Challis, in case ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... I could never be fond of him in any different way—that I could never think of it. And although I endeavoured to avoid hurting his feelings, he—took it very badly. He said, in such a queer, choking voice, that he ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... and it was soon abundantly evident that we had done right in trusting him. He was a short, round-faced man, with a florid complexion, twinkling eyes, and sandy hair. He was very restless and irritable, and had a queer habit of twiddling his thumbs backward and forward whenever ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... looks; but they are a queer race. You must not trust him too much," continued Oswald, in an undertone, "until you have tried him, and are satisfied of his fidelity. They are very excitable, and capable of strong attachment if well treated. That I know, for I did ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... his head, as if to say "now it's all right! Bravo!" So my terror changed to astonishment. Reissiger, for reasons which I shall discuss presently, may not have been so very much to blame for persisting in the old tempo; but Mendelssohn's indifference, with regard to this queer artistic contretemps, raised doubts in my mind whether he saw any distinction and difference in the case at all. I fancied myself standing before an abyss of superficiality, a veritable void. SOON after this had happened ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... me good, honey, but thar's a queer gone feelin' inside of me. I'm twenty years younger than you, old Adam, but you've got mo' youth left in you than ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... as well as everybody is small, and queer, and mysterious: the little houses under their blue roofs, the little shop-fronts hung with blue, and the smiling little people in their blue costumes. The illusion is only broken by the occasional passing of a tall foreigner, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... sharp gasp of surprise, and saw the girl slip, with a frantic clutch at the air, and fall at full length on the shining ground. When he sprang forward and bent over her, she rose quickly to her knees and held out what he thought at first was some queer ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... my word for it—if old man Brookes ever finds out I'm sister to any of the crowd that runs with Charley Cox and Willie Waxter and those boys whose fathers he's lawyer for, it'll queer me for life in that office—that's what it will. A girl that's been made confidential stenographer after only one year in an office to have to be afraid, like I am, to ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry some special significance. But the girl showed no sign of enlightenment. "You remember the Carey boys?" he urged. "They left Harvard the year I entered. They HAD to leave. They were quite mad. All the Careys have been mad. The boys were queer even then, and awfully rich. Henry ran away with a girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris, and Philip ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... are queer, indeed; They seem to come of a three-legged breed. They have no tails, their bark is on their back; They hunt in couples, never in a pack. The day's work over, 'tis a pleasant sight To find them waiting by the fire ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... They drove through the queer, narrow, crooked streets, out upon the "neutral ground," and up to the gardens; bought an English newspaper; then, going back to the ship, looked up at the frowning rock threaded by those English galleries, which, upon ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... looked again. He leaned over and studied it intently, his eyes widening and shining. Suddenly with a queer gesture he rose and went to a window. He stood there, back turned to David, ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... other by the natural knot and gathered into a sort of enormous pan-pipe, such as Polyphemus might have employed. The invitation was accepted: Osmiae, Anthidia and Megachiles came in fairly large numbers, especially the first, to benefit by the queer installation. ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... and he chose to bury himself out on a Western ranch, and there I grew up with no more training than the little Indian girls who used to come to the house with beads and things to sell. It was a queer life for a girl; but ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and that's all you or anyone else can make out of it." His other references to early days were rare. He would repeat queer reminiscences of the backwoods to illustrate questions of state; but of his own part in that old life he spoke reluctantly and sadly. Nevertheless there was once extracted from him an awkward autobiographical fragment, and his friends ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... 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 a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the end of a railroad platform waiting for a friend, will recall what queer people he mistook for him. The shape of a hat, a slightly characteristic gait, evoked the vivid picture in his mind's eye. In sleep a tinkle may sound like the pealing of a great bell; the distant stroke of a hammer like a thunderclap. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... boyhood was Archibald Gray; And to prove what queer antics Dame Fortune will play When she sets about trying to plan, She heaped all her favors on Valentine, bold, And always left Archibald out of her fold, The harmless, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... know, I have a queer feeling that I've seen all this before," the Irish girl said. "Of course I haven't—unless it was in my dreams. Naturally I've thought about Alaska a great deal because my father ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... their perch, Hear the sweet lily-bells Ringing to church. Come, hear what his reverence Rises to say, In his low painted pulpit This calm Sabbath-day. Fair is the canopy Over him seen, Penciled by Nature's hand, Black, brown, and green. Green is his surplice, Green are his bands; In his queer little pulpit ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... pictures at that place in Suffolk Street? There's a man there—a Parisian—I forget his honoured name—Leblanc, or Lenoir, or Lebrun, or something—but he's a most humorous artist, and he paints monkeys and storks and all sorts of queer beasties ALMOST as quaintly and expressively as you do. Mind, I say ALMOST, for I never will allow that any Frenchman could do anything QUITE so good, quite so funnily mock-human, as ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... The Custom-House marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I hope, will never ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it - and the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting, the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the limekilns and oast-houses glimmered and glittered till they ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... parade, not wishing to hurt his feelings. Looking up I found his mild eyes fixed on me with a queer expression, almost with a twinkle ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... no time. "It's fine of you," she said eagerly. "Yes, I'm sure you can do it. Not one person in fifty will know whether the tunes you play are national or not. Something quaint and queer for the Hungarian, and jigsy and gay for the Irish. Castanets in the Spanish ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... take place, is filled with real old furniture; the family that owned the farm have held it for five generations. Mr. Van Styne admits that he is not enough of a connoisseur to judge the actual value of the antiques, but there are some mahogany pieces, and loads of queer old things that his wife would have kept in the attic, or split up for kindlings. As he thinks this is what is now called 'Period Furniture,' he would suggest that we run out and have a look at it before the day of ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... not Benny's face, either, that frightened the ground squirrels away, though everybody had to admit that he had a queer one. A black patch spread over his eyes and ran like the point of a V down his nose. For the most part, however, he was of a grayish color, with still more black running in streaks across his back. Underneath he was a—yes! a dirty white color. But then, one must ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... expecting something to happen. A barrel-organ played like an obscene nightingale beneath wet leaves. Children ran across the road. Here and there one could see brown panelling inside the hall door.... The march that the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough. Now distracted by brown panelling; now by a fern in a pot; here improvising a few phrases to dance with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other (so outright, so lusty)—yet ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... say that for her," answered Winnie. "I don't know as there is any one thing I can put my finger on. Of course she has never been in charge of the house before—it will be queer to be taking orders from her. She's been here off and on, making visits and she never bothered me. Mrs. Willis, poor dear, went away feeling sure that the girls would be well looked after and I'd be the last one to think of disturbing her thoughts. But, between ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... was a 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
... Mrs. Jett that queer juvenescence that sometimes comes to men and women in middle life. She who had enjoyed no particular youth (her father had died in a ferryboat crash two weeks before her birth, and her mother three years after) came suddenly to acquire comeliness which ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... queer old lady!" thought Polly; but she said "Yes 'm" respectfully, and looked at ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... there, who had a clearer vision, the feeling was general that he had made a mistake. He was fifty-six, in the prime of life, never in better health, with "success lying easily upon him"—said one; "at the very summit of his career," said another—and all agreed it was "queer," "strange,"—unless, they argued, he was really ill. Even the most acute students of human affairs among his friends wondered. It seemed incomprehensible that any man should want to give up before he was, for some reason, compelled to do so. A man should go on until ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... ordinary beings that thronged the streets of the great city, for they had been victorious in many a battle with the mighty deep, and they had looked on the wondrous sights of the far-off lands of the Old World. Queer people they were, too, each a Captain Cuttle or a Dirk Hatteraick in himself, and many an hour did the dreamy writer spend with them, apparently listening to their rude stories, but really making keen studies ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... his dressing room, getting ready for the big swing, which he would perform before his mystery tricks, when Mr. Moyne, the circus treasurer, entered. There was a queer look on Mr. Moyne's face, and Joe could not help but ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... Ivanovna's pension.... She gets one. An awfully curious story, I can tell you! I'll tell it you one of these days. Quite an affair, 'pon my soul, a queer affair. But, I say, the governor, you won't forget about the governor, please! His hide is thick, of course—German, and it's had a Russian tanning too, still you can get through it. Only, mind my step-mother ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Meek's Bay are justly world-famed for their triumphs of color glories, for here there seem to be those peculiar combinations of varied objects, and depths, from the shallowest to the deepest, with the variations of colored sands and rocks on the bottom, as well as queer-shaped and colored bowlders lying on the vari-colored sands, that are not found elsewhere. The waving of the water gives a mottled effect surpassing the most delicate and richly-shaded marbles and onyxes. Watered-silks ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... said; "father said if I could raise the calf I might have it. Didn't I have a time with it, though, it was so near dead! Of course I will fix my old dress up for you—that is, if I get the money. Sometimes I think father's queer; he did not give Elizabeth the money when he sold that colt he had given her." And both girls ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... he would come along with his own horse and wagon and it would be noised around that he had six horses in his stable and ten of the finest cows. To be sure, when he saw Elsie lolling around lazily there were blots on his calculation. He realized that she was no housekeeper, and was moreover queer and extravagant. The last fault she might overcome, he thought, if she had a husband. He could afford to have servants then; other folks got along without the wife doing anything, and with such wealth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... there was somethin' mysterious about it. He'd had a good deal worse knocks than that seemed to be, as only left a black and blue spot, and he said he never see a deck load o' timber piled securer. He had some queer notions about the doin's o' sperits, Dan'l had; his old Aunt Parser was to blame for it. She lived with his father's folks, and used to fill him and the rest o' the child'n with all sorts o' ghost stories and stuff. I used to tell him she'd a' be'n hung for a witch if she'd ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... a livin' man! I mightn't a know'd her in that queer dress; but yon's her dog. It's Wolf: I kud ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... was used to Mee-ko's scolding. He had heard it many times before, but never before had he thought there was any sense in it. It seemed very queer to him that he could understand the ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor same ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... who that is,' said the queer little soul. 'A nice person to know, I should think! I wish I had the painting of her: I'D do her justice.' So, feeling quite satisfied that she had said a very cutting thing at Miss Knag's expense, Miss ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Cress; but I'm afraid I shan't be as easy with them as Ponty. My opinion is, that if you give them an inch they'll take an ell. By the way, that was a queer thing about Pledge. Did ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... merely juxtaposition; a newcomer is in the way. There is no longer any room; all habits are acquired. M. Fauchelevent, M. Tranchelevent, Father Gillenormand asked nothing better than to be relieved from "that gentleman." He added:—"Nothing is more common than those originals. They do all sorts of queer things. They have no reason. The Marquis de Canaples was still worse. He bought a palace that he might lodge in the garret. These are ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the very day the slide took place. Wasn't it queer? Dad and mother went out to Butte, to the funeral—Uncle Maurice was an old bachelor—and then they heard his will read and learned ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,—at least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft.... But on the whole, I liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been practicable to put in his place." ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... "Nothing's queer," stated the Virginian, "except marriage and lightning. Them two occurrences can still give me a ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... and rare Alduses and Elzevirs waiting for him at unsuspected bookstalls; the numismatist has but to stretch forth his palm to have priceless coins drop into it. My own weakness is odd people, and I am constantly encountering them. It was plain that I had unearthed a couple of very queer specimens at Bayley's Four-Corners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me too brief an opportunity to develop the richness of both, and I resolved to devote my spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinctively recognizing ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... know Mr. Lear,' Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... went on again: "Well, you'll never guess who it was singing away down there! I crept to my windows and peeped out, and there, Carus, were those two queer forest-running fellows who stopped us on ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... charge on the estate. He drove down the cow himself, and having stalled it in the byre, he informed her of the fact over the yard dyke by word of mouth, for he never could be induced to enter her door. He was accounted to be "gey an' queer," save by those who had tried making a bargain with him. But his farmers liked him, knowing him to be an easy man with those who had been really unfortunate, for he knew to what the year's crops of each had amounted, to a single ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... a very comical sight, and, knowing my little friend's tenderness of heart, I was sure the turtle would receive nothing but kindness at his hands. The shell was not pierced, but the queer trotter was attached to the cart by means of a harness made of tape, allowing him free movement of the head, legs, and tail. If any of your boys should decide to follow my little friend's example, I trust that they will be as gentle as he in the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... Mr. Southey's study at Keswick. The visitor informs the hospitable poet that he is not an American but a spirit. Mr. Southey, with more frankness than civility, tells him that he is a very queer one. The stranger holds out his hand. It has neither weight nor substance. Mr. Southey upon this becomes more serious; his hair stands on end; and he adjures the spectre to tell him what he is, and why he comes. The ghost turns out ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... progress? I will tell you. It is because cranks make all the wheels in all the machinery of the world go round. What would a steam-engine be without a crank? I suppose the first fool that looked on the first crank that was ever made asked what that crooked, queer-looking thing was good for. When the wheels got moving he found out. Tell us something about that book which has so much to say ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... thee a deposit[FN384] wherefor thou hast dunned me." And he fell to bashing him grievously with a stick of holm-oak,[FN385] whilst he called out to the woman for help and prayed her to deliver him: but she said, "Keep thy place till the morning, and thou shalt see queer things." And her husband beat him within the chamber, till he killed[FN386] him and he swooned away. Then he left beating him and when the Robber came to himself, the woman said to her husband, "O man, this house is on hire and we owe its owners much money, and we have ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Hector," cried Miss McIntyre with a challenge in her eyes. "Something very queer happened to me also to-day. I'll bet a pair of gloves that my adventure was more out of the common than yours, though I have nothing so nice to show at ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the hills to Feldwick, and I wrote a note to my father. He tore it into small pieces unread. So I came by night, a thief, and you also were there by night, a thief. The same night, too. It was queer. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... he worked for him when he was sober enough. One evening as he was making his way to the saloon as usual, he heard singing. "That's strange," he muttered; "wonder what's going on?" He turned and walked toward the singing and soon found a large tent filled with people. "Queer-looking show," he thought as he approached the entrance. A pleasant-faced young man stepped up to him and said, "Come in, Bill, and I will get you a good seat." He mechanically followed the usher in. The singing ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... he glanced at the houses he passed, and on some of the doors were little notices scrawled in queer handwritings and telling that a lodging was to let. Occasionally he paused, looked up and hesitated, and then he went on. The difficulty was suddenly before him, and he knew that even if he looked at the rooms he could not hire them, as he had not enough money to cover the first month's ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... exclaimed Mrs. Gratacap, lifting up her hands and eyes. "What did I say? You are his mother, an't you? There's no shame about it, I suppose. I hadn't a notion of putting you into a passion. I thought it mighty queer you didn't come in to see your own son when he's lying so low; and I said so,—that's all! But if you don't want to come, I don't want to force you. I can't put natural feelings in the hearts of people that haven't got them; it stands ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... we may see others of our acquaintance before leaving this,' says he, sorter queer-like, as if to mean, no ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... little girl did not talk and tell what she wanted? She could not. Just think, she was six years old and could not speak a word! All she could do was to make a few queer sounds. Perhaps, too, you wonder why she was so anxious for the towel doll to have eyes. I think it was because although she herself was blind, she liked to fancy her doll had eyes that could see the beauties of the world. To be blind and speechless seems hard indeed, but besides ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... if they knew they wouldn't tell. That was the case with every man I talked to on our side of the river. But over across the Timanyoni, nearly opposite the mouth of the Gloria, there is a little creek coming in from the north, and on this creek I found a lone prospector—a queer old chap who hails from my neck of woods ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... queer book to read," he went on. "And there aren't any pictures to it, either. Most of us living up here have opened its covers, and some of us have read. But I guess Allan's read deeper than any of us. I'd say he's read deeper even than John Kars. It's for that reason I ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the mob and his fellow-judges, for the hapless victors of Arginusae in 406; and he quietly stood alone against the Thirty Tyrants during their reign of terror in 404, disobeying them at peril of his life. But Strip him of the "thing of sinews and muscles," as he called his outer self; forget the queer old personality that appears in the Clouds of Aristophanes, or for that matter in the Memorabilia of Xenophon—and what kind of picture of Socrates should we see? The humor would not go, for it is a universal quality; it has been said no Adept was ever without ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... of such a record it was ludicrous to deny that Tilden, although resembling a reformer, was simply an adroit politician, who had cultivated some queer political associates and had countenanced some very shady transactions. Nevertheless, Tilden would not be diverted from the singleness of his purpose. To make the issue a personal one he took the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... near dense enough for that; and yet it looked queer for a campfire—as near as I could make out there were several of 'em, all in a row, and climbing straight up like columns," declared Eli, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... was a queer looking man, dressed all in garments so shaggy that Betsy at first thought he must be some animal. But the stranger ended his fall in a sitting position and then the girl saw it was really a man. He held an apple in his hand, which ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... milky light stretching from the northern to the southern horizon, reflected in the broken surface of the river, and glistening on the ice cakes that swirled down with the swift current. Then the southern end of the bow began to twist on itself until it had produced a queer elongated corkscrew appearance half-way up to the zenith, while the northern end spread out and bellied from east to west. Then the whole display moved rapidly across the sky until it lay low and faint on the western horizon, and it seemed to be ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... flourishing little port. It is now awaking to its possibilities as a watering-place. Its chief attraction is a wooded promontory rising behind the docks. Round this is cut an excellent road, which finally ends in a queer little attempt at a promenade. The "Point" has figured in history, for the possession of a fort upon it was contested by the Royalist and Roundhead forces in the Civil War. The church is in the middle of the old village, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... buzzin' bees, not one of 'em more'n just nipped me and raised a blister in the skin." Indeed, even those abrasions were indistinguishable, though Jake solemnly believed in their existence. Then another queer thing! Long before the lieutenant and "his fellers" reached the imperiled vehicle all but two or three of the dozen assailants went scurrying off in the darkness, and when the cavalry came charging furiously through the gloom there was no one to oppose them. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... was going to marry her. He did mean to marry her;—there's no doubt of that. But it was a queer kind of life we lived ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... been a severe jolt—a "bunk" Teddy called it—and that the train had come to a sudden stop. So quickly had it stopped, in fact, that a fat man, who was asleep in a berth just behind Mr. Martin, had tumbled out and now sat in the aisle of the car, gazing about him, a queer look on his sleepy face, for he ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... a warning hand. As he spoke a queer thudding sound struck one dull note through the stillness of the house. He stood, bent forward, listening, absolutely breathless; then, on the other side of the wall, there rippled and rolled a something ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... one was the man who had answered to the name of John Bard and the other was the grey man who had spoken to him at the Garden the night before. He knew it not so much by the testimony of his eyes at that dim distance as by a queer, inner feeling that this must be so. There was also a sense of familiarity about the whole thing, as if he were looking on something which he had seen rehearsed ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... Edith here, Thinks all things queer, And some things she likes well; But then the street She thinks not neat, And does not like the smell. Nor do the fleas Her fancy please Although the fleas like her; They at first vie w Fell merrily too, For they made ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... stopped in the same way at an inn. . . . He indoors and me with the horses. . . . The people of the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, I couldn't sleep. I had a queer feeling in my heart, . . . a queer feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and there were plenty of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself. Everyone had been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it would soon be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said, "we had a queer point arise in that Aztec Street inquiry. The original dispute arose owing to a discussion between a crowd of people in a pub as to where Wych ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... Mas'r Harry; because if it is the custom it's all right; if it ain't the custom it's all wrong, and Master Landell and the Don, who are close behind, might think it queer." ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... what to make of it," Walter confessed. "Every few hundred feet there are branches partly broken off and left hanging. Queer, isn't it?" ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "That's all talk; hot air, you might say. Don't believe there's any truth in it, any more'n that story about ghosts, and queer noises that Herb and his crowd tell about. Anyhow, I never let ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... into a secret—had, upon the first appearance of the Spanish ship, been greatly exercised in his mind lest he should fail in courage when the two ships came to blows; but with the discharge of the first shot the queer agitated feeling which he had mistaken for fear completely passed away, and was instantly forgotten; and now, his services being no longer required at the helm, he armed himself with a handspike snatched ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... I; and I laid it on the table opposite me as I went on with my supper. It was a "gossan" wig, as we call it in our parts; a wig grown yellow and rusty with age and wear. It looked so sly and wicked as it lay there, and brought back the events of the day so sharply that a queer dread took me of being discovered with it. I pulled out my pistol, loaded it (they had given me back both the powder and pistol found on me when I was taken), and laid it beside my plate. This done, I went on with my supper—it was an excellent cold capon—and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... know how it is—but things are so queer. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, in my room, which I have had tapestried with fluted rose silk, and lie thinking, under the lace curtains; although I may have been at one of Mrs. Gnu's splendid parties the night before, and ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... end of the hollow log disappeared. There was a queer rattling sound that sent shivers up and down Reddy's backbone. Prickly Porky the Porcupine had sat down with his back against the end of the hollow log, and the queer rattling sound was made by the thousand ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... gray horde rolling through the streets—narrow, cobblestoned streets, with steep-roofed stone houses and queer little courts, and the air over all of having been lived in for generations on generations. There is the remnant in Crepy of one of the houses that used to belong to the Dukes of Valois, and at the end of one winding street you find yourself unexpectedly ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... 'I'm sure I hope he'll make her a good husband. They tell queer things about him downstairs. ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... trimonata. Quartern kvarono, kvaronujo. Quartet kvarteto. Quartz kvarco. Quash (repress) premegi. Quash (annul) senigi, nuligi. Quaver trilo. Quay surbordo, bordmarsxejo. Queen regxino. Queer stranga. Quell trankviligi. Quench (extinguish) estingi. Quench (thirst) kvietigi. Querulous malkontenta. Query demando. Query cxu? Quest sercxo. Quest informigxo. Question demando. Question demandi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the shades and complications of the year—the year something or other ahead. I had it all down to the smallest details—in my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and rejoicing—rejoicing that I had come away out of all that ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells |
