"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fourth-classman was a bear—or a fool—for extra duty. He had gone out for half a dozen teams and applied for membership in the exacting Math Club and Writing Club. The Commandant glanced up; Grayson was still in his extreme brace. The Commandant suddenly had the queer idea that Grayson could hold it until it ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... 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
... make a fool of oneself, commit an absurdity. Adj. ridiculous, ludicrous; comical; droll, funny, laughable, pour rire, grotesque, farcical, odd; whimsical, whimsical as a dancing bear; fanciful, fantastic, queer, rum, quizzical, quaint, bizarre; screaming; eccentric &c. (unconformable) 83; strange, outlandish, out of the way, baroque, weird; awkward &c. (ugly) 846. extravagant, outre, monstrous, preposterous, bombastic, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... thing like that. Besides, it isn't fair to Lu and Ruth. You ought to give them a chance to set themselves straight. You've no right to believe things of them till you've their own word for it that it's true. Give them a chance, and if they act queer ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... was 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 ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... the Big River for a brief visit before leaving on their long, difficult journey to the far-away Southland. Farewells are always rather sad, and this particular farewell had left Peter with a lump in his throat,—a queer, choky feeling. ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess
... than there is between the primitive man and the modern Caucasian man. This creature, hairy and brown as a squirrel, stunted in stature, skinny of limb, was our immediate progenitor. So say the confident scientific men. The owner of the queer ape-like skull found at Neanderthal belonged to a race that was ultimately to develop into Shakespeares and Newtons and Napoleons. In all the enormous series that had its first term in the primeval ooze and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... consumption these last two years, and she works to support them both. She's a hard-working woman, is Martha Cullen; she works in the fields harvesting just now; if I could feel I'd be welcome I would go to sit with her husband sometimes, but she's very queer, she won't let a neighbor come near him, I have tried more than once. It seems hard on him to be bedridden there day after day without a soul to speak to; or any one ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... one has," said John Gilman meditatively, "and it's a queer thing. I can't see why people don't plan a house the way they ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Slapstean," he says, "there stood until a few years agone the cottage in which there lived many years sen one Isaac Haw, who in his day did hunt the fox with George Villiers, and many a queer story did he use to tell. Here be one. There lived on the moor not over an hour's ride from Kirkby Moorside, one Betty Scaife, who had a daughter Betty, a good like wench." George Villiers seeing this girl one day is said to have induced her to become his mistress either by force or with ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... be distinguished when the eye happens accidentally to focus itself exactly upon the spot occupied by the unobtrusive caterpillar. Other larvae which frequent pine trees have their bodies covered with tufts of green hairs that serve to imitate the peculiar pine foliage. One queer little caterpillar, which lives upon the hoary foliage of the sea-buckthorn, has a grey-green body, just like the buckthorn leaves, relieved by a very conspicuous red spot which really represents in size and colour one of the berries that grow around ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... what happened. For a time I was, as it were, stunned; I had nothing to say. It was just as if I had never heard of this idea of leaving the world before. Then I perceived an unaccountable change in my bodily sensations. It was a feeling of lightness, of unreality. Coupled with that was a queer sensation in the head, an apoplectic effect almost, and a thumping of blood vessels at the ears. Neither of these feelings diminished as time went on, but at last I got so used to them ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... a whole lot. Fact is, before we landed I almost had him sized up for queer, but when he introduced me to the Countess I saw my mistake. He must be the real thing. She certainly is! You come ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... but with all his descendants. God is a God of righteousness and therefore in a future world He will torture every human being who dies without availing himself of a certain "plan of salvation" designed to give him a chance of escape. This is a queer sort of righteousness! The plan of salvation consists in sending His own Son—a Son who has existed eternally, which the rest of us have not—to live a few years on earth and go through a certain programme ending with a violent ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... The queer thing about the morbid-minded specialists in fabricated woe is that they believe themselves to be telling the whole truth of human life instead of telling only the worser half of it. They expunge from their records of ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... again and began what he expected would be a perfect imitation of one of Bobby Bobolink's songs. But somehow there seemed to be something wrong. They were very strange notes that he uttered. And the moment she heard them Mrs. Bobolink said aloud to her husband, "What in the world is that queer call? I never heard anything like it ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "That's queer," he said thoughtfully. "Margovan is the only man in the office here whom I know well and like. When he came in this morning and we had passed the usual greetings some singular impulse prompted me to say: 'Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Margovan, but I neglected to ask your ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... This queer bird—also shown in the heading above—is found in the tropical and temperate regions of the globe, and frequents marshes and shallow lakes. In deep water flamingoes swim, but they prefer to wade, for then they can bend down their necks and rake the bottom with their peculiar-shaped bill in ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... this whole affair was partly managed or manipulated by the girl's father. Jew Westbrook knew that Shelley was related to rich and titled people, and that he was certain, if he lived, to become Sir Percy, and to be the heir of his grandfather's estates. Hence it may be that Harriet's queer conduct was not ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... it in the linen hamper," she said. "It must be Mr. Halsey's, but it seems queer how ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the raven were thinking so—the three chickens who lived in a queer little house in one corner of the yard thought so, and huddled the closer together, as they settled themselves for the night. For though it was only half-past three in the afternoon, they thought it was no use sitting up any longer on such a make-believe ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... face and waistcoat. He rolled in, upon two little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the Bar, who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little three-cornered hat upon it; and when Mr. Justice Stareleigh had done this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink face, and somewhere about half of a big and very ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... shake hands, young man. It is a hollow social custom. With Damon and Pythias it meant something. One was ready to die for the other, and that hand-clasp meant friendship until death. How many hand shakings mean that nowadays? Besides," with a queer smile, "I have just been cutting up a broiler that I intend to cook for my dinner. Come in, you are welcome on the conditions ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... mother engaged as you are, and faith I would not have missed the sight for a thousand guineas, paid down on the nail. Ah! Mistress Burton, it reminds me of days gone by, but I won't say I have no hopes that they will ever return," and our visitor twisted his eyes about in what I thought a very queer way, ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... of the caverns, sometimes stooping to get through and sometimes standing beneath domes thirty and forty feet high. And always that queer, mystical light, with exaggerated shadows and sometimes black darkness ahead, where could be heard the drip, drip, drip of water in invisible lakes. In time of siege the holders of this cave, with granaries filled and with herds of cattle ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... "There's something queer about this," mused the famous electrician. "Widding tells me he submitted his idea to the Navy Department over a year ago. Think of that! An idea ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... seen anything more beautiful than the scenery of Port Louis harbour. High above the town rises La Pouce, or the thumb mountain, clothed with trees to its very top. It forms one of an amphitheatre of queer-shaped mountains, at the foot of which nestles comfortably the capital of the island. To the left, seen over a range of hills, rises "Pieter Bot," a mountain so called from a Dutchman who, in a spirit ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... helplessly from time to time, and then hid her head ashamed at having been betrayed into such an exhibition of weakness in public; an Owl, who, living habitually in the barn, regarded the others with suspicion as intruders, and possibly thieves; and, lastly, two queer Japanese birds, who had lived all the summer on the ornamental lake in ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... and reached the place where a hundred roads crossed, as Moglung had said. But he stopped there to rest and chew betel-nut. Soon he began to feel queer and dizzy, and he fell asleep, not knowing anything. When he woke up, he wandered along up the mountain until he reached a house at the border of a big meadow, and thought he would stop and ask his ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... in his yellow coat and trousers and his queer pointed hat, sat on a magnificent pony a little in front of the crowd ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... I was awakened by something white, hard, and round which rolled gently and stopped still quite close to me. It was not alive, although it had a queer smell, and I wondered why it moved at all. Presently I heard voices and there appeared a little man, and with him somebody who was not a man because it was differently dressed and spoke in a higher voice. I saw that they had sticks in their hands and thought ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... "Queer we can't see any of the boys," muttered Mr. Wilder in a low voice. "I know they are tired. But, all things considered, one of them at least ought to be on watch if for nothing else than to keep the cattle from breaking away. That ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... and see for myself what it all meant. Two senses had been affected—touch and hearing—and I could not believe that I had been deceived. So, with a lighted candle, I went stealthily forth on my unpleasant journey into the upper regions of this queer little old house. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... "Queer!" said the detective, as he stood staring meditatively at patens and chalices, reliquaries and pyxes. "All these, I reckon, are sacred things, consecrated and all that, and yet ever since that Reformation time, they've ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... "It's queer for bushes to be growing so far out from shore," muttered Tom, "and it shows how shallow the water must be about here. You had better back ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... true thet this hyur ain't the fust painter I've comed acrosst. About fifteen yeern ago I moved to Loozyanny, an' thur I met a painter, an' a queer ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... with a queer look, "if you had smoked that black devil and I hadn't—all would have been over between ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... I am particularly fond of this kind of travel," Frank confided to Jack. "It's all right as long as we remain on the surface, but I'll bet it would feel queer to be ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Toby could not make anything out of the queer-looking marks they saw revealed by the ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... raise Queer ladies in the olden days. Either the type had not been fixed, Or else Zoology got mixed. I envy not primeval man This female on the feathered plan. We only have, I'm glad to say, Two kinds of human bird to-day— Women and warriors, who still Wear feathers ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... mind and do not discuss the fast or any of the symptoms with anyone except the adviser. It is best not to tell any outsiders about the fast, for the public has some queer ideas on the subject. If you are afraid, or if you have to fight with neighbors, friends, relatives, or perhaps with the health authorities, as sometimes happens, it is better not to take ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... the Moosefoot Injuns?" began the trader slowly. Nick nodded. "They're a queer lot o' neches. I used to do a deal o' trade wi' them on the Peace River, 'fore they was located on a reserve. They were the last o' the old-time redskin hunters. Dessay they were the last to hunt the buffalo into the drives. They're pretty fine men now, I guess, ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... childhood—an only child for six years—and family letters show that I was "always and for ever talking," asking questions, making queer remarks, or allowing free play to a vivid imagination, which my parents thought it wise to restrain. Father felt called upon to write for a child's paper about Caty's Gold Fish, which were only ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... waistcoats, and flannel shirts, and such like, and oncommon good they be, too, and oncommon cheap. He wor givin' we a bit of a lecture loike, on lions and tigers, and ryenosed-horses, and such-loike beasts, and on they queer creatures wot lived before the flood. Lord! there was one beast with a long neck, and paddles for swimmin' with, as made we all ready to bust with laughin' when him showed us the pictur' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... man came from, and when I told them I came from California they looked incredulous, having probably never of such a country. Then I strolled down through the fish-market, where there were a great many queer fish exposed for sale by ancient and slimy old men and women, whose hands and aprons were covered with fish-scales, and whose faces had a very fishy expression. They offered me fish in every shape—skinned, gutted, chopped up, or whole, just as I pleased to buy them. One wrinkled old woman, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... be a man he fancied he wor i' love wi' a young woman 'at lived claise to his mother's,—one at wor just as queer a karacter as hissen, wi this difference, shoo could haddle ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... lord mayor, who was arrayed in his robes, chain, and all the glories of his office, stood the toastmaster, who announced the toasts in a manner fit to make an American think himself dreaming,—something, in fact, after this sort, in a queer singsong way, with comical cadences, brought up at the end with a sharp snap: "Me lawds, la-a-a-dies and gentleme-e-e-n, by commawnd of the Right Honorable the Lawrd Marr, I cha-a-awrge you fill your glawse-e-e-s and drink to the health ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... telegraphed up to all the children, of the way we went to muster when we were boys together? Ah well! I ought not to have supposed that all worlds were like this old world. Indeed, I often say this is the queerest world I ever knew. Perhaps theirs is not so queer, and it is I ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... him. He had smiled and said in a shrill voice that he thought Jack was a very nice boy. He wore a light grey-green Palm Beach suit and carried a big brown leather briefcase that looked too heavy for his soda straw-thin legs and arms. He was queer-looking because his waist was so narrow and his back so humped. And when he took off his tan Panama hat, a white fuzz exploded from his scalp. His face was pale as the moon in daylight. His broad smile showed teeth that Jack knew ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... 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
... very severely, "What for you stop too long?" But he walked up to me, without a word, and put down before me a little dirty handkerchief, all tied up in knots, which I finally made up my mind to open. It was full of the most curious sweet-meats and candy, little curls of cocoanut, frosted with sugar; queer fruits, speckled with seeds; and some nuts that looked exactly like carved ram's-heads with horns. We had to accept this as a peace-offering, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... pulled up in front of the Perkins' house and the idiot lad with queer cries of delight came stumbling out to meet him. The girl named Gladys ran out too, and the old man handed her a sheaf of glowing crimson dahlias. She buried her face in them and hugged them to her in a passion ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... gasped Sally May; "well, of all the queer schools! Ask a teacher if we may have a midnight supper? Well, I ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... 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, and would impel him, I think, to take an antagonist in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in front. But, on the whole, I like 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 ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with a horrid headache (to adopt a suggestion of GILBERT's), When too freely you've dined, or too heavily wined, or munched too many walnuts or filberts; When your brain is a maze, and creation a haze, then each queer social craze—there are many!— Gets your wits in a spool, and there isn't a fool for your thoughts ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... a queer little laugh was heard; a kind of a smothered, bursting laugh. The children stared! and there was the little old gentleman stuffing his pocket handkerchief into his mouth, and perfectly shaking with laughter!! What conduct in ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... in something which was like a half-laugh. His queer, sharp, incomprehensible face, his queer, unmoved voice were too extraordinarily unlike anything she had ever ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that don't seem so queer to me as it used to? It seems all right fur pertickler friends to call me Jim, but clo'es is what puts the Mister into a man. I felt it comin' when I looked into the glass. Says I to myself: 'Jim, that's Mr. Fenton as is now afore ye. Look ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... "Yes, sir, ain't it queer? I was thinking the same. I ain't done nothing but be civil to the chaps since we come aboard, but they're as pleased as Punch to see us back again. They're a bit disappointed though that Sir John didn't go in for giving the ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... the night of the musicale, when he had raced across the Square to tell her of his talk with the little lady. Sue, as he remembered afterward, had listened abstractedly. She would have preferred at the time his running in to talk about herself rather than about his queer ambitions. She was ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... profuse in his thanks, go down a few steps before him, and then he turned back to say to his nephew, "Well, you are a queer fellow! you keep me here ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... still remember Betty Wells, and they shake their heads as they say, "Well, you see, the old woman had a very queer-looking eye," giving you to understand that it was with that particular eye she worked all ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... there yet, grubbing at some papers. Come on over, and tell him what you have told me. I believe the lass will turn up all right, but it does look rather queer." ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... upon me. "By Jove, old chap," he said, with a queer note in his voice, "you touch me awfully close. You're like men of my own family—you stir something in me that I used to know. The word of a fighting man—that's the same for yours and mine; and that's why I've ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... favour at Croisette's girlish face, I thought: Marie and I were dark and ugly by the side of the boy. But he turned from him now with a queer, excited gesture, thumping his gold-headed cane on the floor. He called his servants in a loud, rasping voice, and left the room in seeming anger, driving them before him, the one carrying his dag, ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... examined the photograph for a moment. A queer expression entered his eyes. He touched a bell at his elbow, and an ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... backstays and shrouds parted under the terrific strain suddenly thrown upon them, then an ear-splitting crash as the three masts went over the bows, and I found myself struggling and fighting to free myself from the raffle of the wrecked mizenmast. I felt very dazed and queer, and a bit sick, for I was dimly conscious of the fact that I had been struck on the head by something when the masts fell, and upon putting up my hand I found that my hair was wet with something warm that was soaking it and trickling down into my eyes and ears. Then I heard the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... shirts, papers, and dresses of all kinds out of the windows. They are not rogues, these French; they are not stealing, burning, or doing much harm. In the Tuileries they have dressed up some of the statues, broken some, and stolen nothing but queer dresses. I say, Frank, you must not hate the French; hate the Germans if you like. The French laugh at us a little and call out Goddam in the streets; but to-day, in civil war, when they might have put a bullet through our heads, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tide, and reports that Jack was knocked off the foretopsail yardarm, and they never see'd him again. He shouted 'Guidbye, I cannot hold on any longer.' I asked God to have his body picked up and sent home, and while I was doing it, a queer thought came over me that little Bobby was being washed overboard from the Savannah. I hope it's not true, and that God won't take him from us as well. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... admiration filled her mind. She was primitive, elemental. A little tingle of delight thrilled her to know that this strong man wanted her and would fight to win what his heart craved. After all he was her first lover. A queer shame distressed the girl at the memory of his kisses, for through all the anger, chagrin, and wounded pride had come to her the first direct realization of what sex meant. Her alarmed innocence pushed this ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... remember times when a word they know quite well and use often has suddenly seemed very strange to them. Perhaps they began repeating the word half to themselves again and again, and wondered why they had never noticed before what a queer word it is. Then generally they have forgotten all about it, and the next time they have used the word it has not ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... ask to see her father then, so as to get a few minutes conversation with the other. Sarah would be surprised to see him, of course, at this queer hour, ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... brought from the country of Flanders, where he had sold his mechanical secrets. He bought a splendid house in Rue St. Montfumier, which is still to be seen, and is the astonishment of the passers-by, because it has certain very queer round humps fashioned upon the stones of the wall. Carandas, the hater, found many notable changes at the house of his friend, the dyer, for the good man had two sweet children, who, by a curious chance, presented no resemblance either to the mother or to the father. But as it is necessary that ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... eerie shadows now, in the queer light of the leader's lamp. Small fluorescent markings guided them. The last man grunted ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... of the queer anomalies of a volunteer army were to be found. So strongly ingrained in the heart of the British youth of good family is the love of country, that when he is unable to get his commission he goes in any capacity. I heard of a little chap, too small for the regular service, who has gone to the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... do, though that's a queer way to put it. You talk as though you had come to smoke a ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... has probably come home with her head full of queer-fangled notions which would be out of keeping with our institutions. Just the reason why she shouldn't be chosen. We are greatly troubled as to the result, dear, for though we expect to win, the prejudice ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... he made up his mind to return to the house, But the merry wind pushed itself under his blouse; And it roared and it roared, as he puffed and he ran, Till it just knocked over this queer little man. "Ho-ho!" said Mike, and he said "He-he! I'll get up again, Old Wind, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... towards the portraits on the wall, she flippantly asked one of those cavaliers to oblige her fancy for company by stepping down from his frame. The temerity of the request led her to prudently withdraw it almost as soon as conceived: old paintings had been said to play queer tricks in extreme cases, and the shadows this afternoon were funereal enough for anything in the shape of revenge on an intruder who embodied the antagonistic modern spirit to such an extent as she. However, Paula still stood before the picture ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... in a queer condition!" said Mr. Cruncher, more and more disturbed. "Wot can she have been a takin', to keep her courage up? Hark! There's the roll of them dreadful carts! You ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... when I perceived you accost a strange-looking person—a courier from the moon, perhaps! You may remember you sauntered with him as far as Sir William Miller's. I would have joined you, but seeing the family standing in the balcony, I did not wish them to suppose that I knew anything of such queer company." ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... think so?" Lila smiled a little doubtfully. "It sounds like one of the sophists—'to make the worse appear the better reason.' I'd love to believe it, and you are sweet to me." She laid one arm caressingly across Bea's shoulders. "It is queer that I don't mind more when you ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... in spite of every effort it was impossible to discover the slightest analogy between the writing of the anonymous letters and the impressions left on the blotting-pad of the duke. The countess and her assistants in this queer task, therefore, came to the conclusion that they would have to search in ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... England's proud fleets was collected. The gig was waiting at the point. I stepped into her with as much dignity as I could command and we pulled out of the harbour. When we got into the tide-way the boat began to bob about a good deal. I felt very queer. "Edkins, is this what you call a storm?" I asked, wishing the boat would ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... confidential, trustin' smile that sparkles with good faith and good nature, and kind of thrills you with the feelin' that you must be a lot better'n you ever suspected. Honest, after one application I forgets the queer rig she has on, the mud-colored hair, and the way her chest slumps in. Whoever she might be and whatever she might want, I'm strong for givin' her the helpin' hand. If I could have gone in and led old K. W. out by ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... immediately directed to the old man. Mrs Rayleigh, who was a fine lady, and had never seen so queer a specimen of a critic as Mr Roe, was a little alarmed at his uncouth pronunciation. And Mr Gillingham Howard made a feeble and unsuccessful effort to deaden ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... rolled down her cheeks. "He was old and was tired, and everyone he loved had gone before him. It will be like going home to meet them again. He was grim and cross and suspicious, but I loved him all the same, and in his queer way I am sure that he liked me too. I'm thankful he is at rest! ... 'Will write details.' Thursday!—that means that she will write on Thursday evening. Mrs Thornton is nothing if not businesslike. We shall hear from her by the second ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... light he could on these interesting questions, and Sir Robert thoughtfully ran his hands through his side-whiskers, while, with an apologetic "One moment, I beg," or "Very odd, very; that must go down verbatim," he entered the gist of Mr. Ketchum's queer remarks ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... Claudio had a queer friend called Lucio, and Lucio saw a chance of freedom for Claudio if Claudio's beautiful sister Isabella ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... swung into the road, the Subaltern could not help thinking that this was indeed a queer send-off. A few sergeants' wives, standing at the corner of the Parade ground, were saying good-bye to their friends as they passed. "Good-bye, Bill;" "Good luck, Sam!" Not a hint of emotion in their voices. One might have thought that husbands ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... heartily in the shout of laughter which we indulged in. 'He is a queer character — Alphonse,' he said. 'By and by I will tell you his history; in the meanwhile ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... been rather cold at first, but Herzog's amiability had thawed her. This man, with his slow speech and queer eyes, produced a fascinating effect on one like a serpent. He was repugnant, and yet, in spite of one's self one was led on. He, had at once introduced the grain question, but in this he found himself face to face with the real Madame Desvarennes; and no politeness held good on her part when it was ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... little creatures (Smynthurus luteus) coquetting together. The male, which is much smaller than the female, runs round her, and they butt one another, standing face to face and moving backward and forward like two playful lambs. Then the female pretends to run away and the male runs after her with a queer appearance of anger, gets in front and stands facing her again; then she turns coyly round, but he, quicker and more active, scuttles round too, and seems to whip her with his antennae; then for a bit they stand ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... fish-houses and flakes that crop out like queer mushrooms on stilts all over the edges of the cove, and it was a shaky damsel who shuddered over the passing of a wobbly plank. The crew of two waited below in the boat, and smiled encouragingly, so that I had to try and show more bravery ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... slowly, "but three days after Madame Danterre's death a foreigner asked to see me who refused to give his name to my clerk. I had him shown in, and thought him a superior man—not, perhaps, a gentleman, but a man with brains. He asked in rather queer English whether I would object to giving him all the information I could, without betraying confidence, as to Sir David Bright and his wife. I thought for a moment that he was your Florentine detective, but then I reflected that ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... "It's a queer world, Mr. Lennox. In spite of what you say and which I endorse, I'm going with an eager heart in the great expedition against Quebec, and so will you. I'll be filled with joy if it succeeds and ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... certainly acting queer. He was circling around, sniffing, sniffing, his nose in the air, his tail wagging. He edged over to the door ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... leg, anyway," said Mr Penhaligon sympathetically, and stared about the room. "Life's a queer business," he went on after a pause, his eyes fixed on the old beam whence the key depended. "To think that I be eatin' the last meal in this old kitchen. An' yet so many have eaten meals here an' warmed ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a queer sign of the disproportionate development of individual religion in our current Christianity, that this social and economic legislation should have been so spiritualized away as to leave no consciousness of its original character in the minds ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... like a play-actor, just the same as he'd seen at Carlisle. He was a captain, and he murdered a king, and then he was made king himself, and the ghost came and sat in his chair at a great feast he gave. Lord o' me! but it was queer. First he came on when he was going to do the murder and let wit he saw a dagger floating before him. He started and jumped same as our big tom cat when Mouser comes round about him. You'd have died of laughing. Then he comes ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... it would rattle and squeak; it would make noises like swiftly torn canvas, or like a steam siren in a hurry. It would climb up to the heavens and come banging down to hell. And every thing with queer, tormenting motions, gliding and writhing, wriggling, jerking, jumping. Peter would never have known what to make of such music, if he had not had it here made visible before his eyes, in the behavior of the half-naked goddesses and the black-coated ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair |
