"Uncommunicative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ran from bench to bench, shouting and hardly knowing what to do. Word was sent to the office, while the workers went to their buckets and washed themselves, silent and melancholy as a funeral procession. Their faces were uncommunicative. Did they perhaps foresee that those three blows were the signal for a terrible conflict? Or were they merely following their first angry impulse? They knew enough, at all events; it was stamped upon their faces that this was fate—the inevitable. They had ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... world authorial, so anticipated by a hostess, so looked-forward-to by guests! In most cases, how forlorn they be! how dull; constrained, suspicious! like rival traders, with pockets instinctively buttoned up, and glaring each upon the other with most uncommunicative aspects; not brothers at a banquet, but combatants and wrestlers, watching for solecisms in the other's talk, or toiling to drag in some laboured witticism of their own, after the classical precedent of Hercules and Cerberus: those feasts of reason, how vapid! those flows of soul, how icily congealing! ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... uncommunicative. As they climbed the shoulder and came to the rich, black soil that surrounded the ancient cone of Warrenheip, he mused on his personal relation to the place he had just left. And not for the first time he asked ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... for the extremely practical attitude adopted by Fletcher Hill. But when she saw him again on the day after their safe return to Trelevan there was nothing in his demeanour to remind her of the stress through which they had passed. He was, as ever, perfectly calm and self-contained, and wholly uncommunicative. Adela sought in vain to satisfy her curiosity as to the happenings in Barren Valley which her courage had not permitted her to witness for herself. Fletcher Hill was as a closed book, and on some points Dot was equally reticent. By no persuasion ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "the governor," as Mr. Abbot was called, because of the respect in which he was held, had "struck it rich," in other words, that his claim was proving an unusually fruitful one, and he was making money rapidly. How this came to be known it would be hard to say, for he was very uncommunicative, going and coming to and from his work quietly and unostentatiously, and living in ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of any chain of reasoning by which she might know beforehand what would meet her mother's favour and what would not. The unconscious conclusion was, that reason had little to do with it; and the consequence, that without being untrue, Daisy had learned to be very uncommunicative about her thoughts, plans, or wishes. To her mother, that is; she was more free with her father, though the habit, once a habit, asserted itself everywhere. Perhaps, too, among causes, the example of her mother's own elegant manner ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... not disposed to talk of his master. He was perhaps not on particularly good terms with him. He led her away and volunteered no further information. He was, upon the whole, uncommunicative. He did not once refer to the circumstance of their having met before. It was plain that he had no intention of presuming upon the fact that he, as a second-class passenger on a ship, had once been forced by accident across ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... girls had at various periods tried to "take Lorna up," but all had promptly dropped her, declaring that they could not get any further, and that she was a solitary "hermit-crab." Irene, after one or two ventures, realized that Lorna was utterly reserved and uncommunicative, but was content to continue the friendship on a one-sided basis, giving confidences, but receiving none in return. She was a little laughed at in certain quarters on the subject of ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... to the tip of Marjorie's tongue, but she restrained them. It was Ermie's custom sometimes to be very snappy and uncommunicative. She concluded the wisest policy was to let her sister alone, and to go to sleep herself as fast ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a second cigarette and commented on the warmth of the night to an elderly gentleman who entered the carriage from the corridor. The elderly gentleman was uncommunicative and merely growled in reply. Mannix offered him a match. The gentleman growled again and lit his cigar from his own matchbox. Mannix arrived at the conclusion that he must be, for some reason, in a bad temper. He watched him for a while and then decided further that he was, if not an actual "bounder," ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... know more about him, for he struck her at the time as quite out of the common, quite remarkably attractive. But on the only occasion since when she had mentioned the subject, Damaris drew in her horns and became curiously uncommunicative. It was all connected, of course, with the dear girl's illness and the disagreeable episode of Theresa's dismissal.—How all the more satisfactory, then, that the Theresa business, in any case, was at this very hour in process of being set right! Miss Felicia had advised Theresa how to act—to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in while we were looking the plant over, but seemed uncommunicative to all Kennedy's efforts ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... of Ancon; evenings, they loitered about the cool verandas of the Tivoli or strolled down into the town to watch the crowds in the plazas. Once in a while Cortlandt went with them, but he was usually uncommunicative, and they scarcely felt his presence. On the few occasions when he gave himself rein, Kirk was compelled to feel for him a surprised and half-grudging respect. Unlike most silent men, when he did talk ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... unapproachable. If he don't pour out his heart, in unlimited torrents and cascades of feeling, to a curious stranger, the latter goes away with the report that the author, personally, is "icy, reserved, uncommunicative; in the man, one sees nothing of his works; it is difficult to believe that that cold, forbidding brow conceived, those rigid, unsmiling lips uttered, and that dry, bloodless hand wrote, the fervid passion of"—such or such a book. When I read a description of myself, written ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... Leon, "which may explain this on other grounds than madness, and which is quite in accordance with Wiggins's character. He has been the agent of the estates for these ten years, and though he was very close and uncommunicative about the extent of his powers and the nature of his connection with Dalton, yet it is evident that he has had Dalton's confidence to the highest degree; and I think that before Dalton's unfortunate business, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... other special allies seemed to labour under unusual restraint with her. Barrington Erle seldom told her any news. Mr. Rattler never had a word for her. Warburton, who had ever been discreet, became almost petrified by discretion. And even Phineas Finn had grown to be solemn, silent, and uncommunicative. "Have you heard who is the new Prime Minister?" she said ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... think of the situation of affairs, she had never said a word to any living soul, not even to her children. Naturally cold and reserved, she was very uncommunicative—a fact that pained Hulda and Joel not a little. But with that respect for the head of the family innate in Northern lands, they made no attempt to break down a reserve which was eminently distasteful to them. Besides, ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... big man, who evidently was the leader of the present convention, got up to depart. He went as swiftly as he had come, and was followed by his comrades. Longstreth prepared for a quiet smoke. Lawson seemed uncommunicative and unsociable. He smoked fiercely and drank continually. All at once he straightened ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the contents of this mysterious epistle, and he resolved to watch, if possible, what effect the perusal of it might have on his uncle, otherwise he was never likely to hear a syllable that was contained in it, that worthy relative being, from official necessity, a most uncommunicative person in ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... frank and garrulous about most things, she noticed that if she began to speak of his mother or his Patrigno, his manner changed, and he became uncommunicative. Was this owing to Gaspare's rather rough rebuke upon the cliff before Artois and Vere? Or had Gaspare emphasized that by further directions when alone with Ruffo? She tried deftly to find out, but the boy baffled her. But perhaps he was delicate about money, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... however, at about noon the gruff uncommunicative peasant who was my gaoler—a man incarcerated for murder in Moscow—unlocked the door and bade me ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... but the subject fascinated Mountfort. The girl had sprung away and disappeared down one of the cliff paths directly Hugh had been extricated from danger. Mountfort was curious about her, but Hugh was uncommunicative. He had no answer ready to Mountfort's question. He scarcely ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... difficulty with a little knowledge of the French language in making myself understood, but here it was very different; in vain we addressed many respectable persons we met with in the streets respecting some public buildings, and we found every droshky man quite uncommunicative, so that directions had to be given at the hotel of our intended route, and if we changed our driver we managed to return by pointing the way, right or left. All this might have been obviated by the use of a few Russian words, but our time seemed ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... Harvey seemed uncommunicative. Studying his hand, he asked in a sour way whether it was a jackpot, and upon being told that it was not, pushed forward some chips and looked stupidly up—though Harvey was by no means stupid. "Proud to know you, sir," said Bill, bending ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... place are generally negroes of the better class. They are well trained, many of them having been brought up as the valets, or butlers of the Southern gentry, and answer better for such places than whites, inasmuch as they are quiet, uncommunicative, attentive and respectful. One of these men is always in charge of the front door, and visitors are admitted with caution, it being highly desirable to admit only the nominally respectable. The best known houses are those of Morrissey, in Twenty-fourth ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... slouch hat ambled up the asphalt path to the narrow door against which John was leaning. "Good morning!" John said, glancing at the slouch hat and the shabby reefer coat and the brown boots. "Have you come to do this ceremony, too?" The man nodded his head. He was very uncommunicative and had a surly look. "But they won't let you ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... mighty amusing to me; it is a man's mode of viewing correspondence. Men's letters are proverbially uninteresting and uncommunicative. I never quite knew before why they made them so. They may be right in a sense: strange chances do fall out certainly. As to my own notes, I never thought of attaching importance to them or considering their fate, till Arthur seemed to reflect on ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... yet past five, and Lady Julia did not go upstairs to dress till six, and therefore there was an hour during which they were together. John had at first been rather grand to his old friend, and very uncommunicative. But before the dressing-bell had rung he had been coaxed into a confidential strain and had told everything. "I suppose it is wrong and selfish," he said. "I suppose I am a dog in a manger. But I do own that there is a consolation to ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... student, Basilio, famous for his successful cures and extraordinary treatments, while the other, taller and more robust, although much younger, was Isagani, one of the poets, or at least rimesters, who that year came from the Ateneo, [6] a curious character, ordinarily quite taciturn and uncommunicative. The man talking with them was the rich Capitan Basilio, who was returning from a ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... there was always a line drawn around her over which they had never been able to pass. They loved her dearly; they admired her wildly; but they no more understood the soul that was locked up in her uncommunicative nature than they understood the riddle of the Sphinx. They all realized this, and were filled with sorrowful forebodings. The fact that she had known Prince Karl Augustus loomed larger and larger in ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... listener asked about this superstition of the bridge and the legend connected with it, the Indian would at once become uncommunicative, and say, "You can't understand," or more frequently, "I don't know." For the main difficulty in collecting these ancient tales—"old-man talk," as the Siwashes call them—was, that there was much superstition interwoven with them; and the ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... distance of a mile, rose gaunt and black against a roseate sky, grew longer and longer; and then, as twilight fell, the two coming home met a few paces from the cottage. He asked some questions about the work she had been doing, and she answered briefly. Then, silent and uncommunicative, they went in together. The girl set the bread and cider on the table, and going to the great black pot which had been simmering all day upon the fire, poured some broth into two pitchers. It did not escape Michel's frugal ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman |
