"Clutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hundred tons at least, with high forecastle and lofty stern, though I saw little else ere, at a sign from Adam I followed him down the after-gangway where, taking a flickering lanthorn that hung from a deck-beam, he led me 'twixt a clutter of stores not yet stowed, past the grim shapes of great ordnance, and so down and down to a noisome ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... visited that retired part of the town called "Purgatory." He found Mr. Gammon's homestead to be a gray and unkempt farm-house from which the weather had scrubbed the paint. The front yard was bare of every vestige of grass and contained a clutter that seemed to embrace ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... as Mr. Lockhart pointed out, 'is not to the Tale of a Tub, but to the History of John Bull' (part ii. ch 12 and 13). Jack, who hangs himself, is however the youngest of the three brothers of The Tale of a Tub, 'that have made such a clutter in the work' (ib. chap ii). Jack was unwillingly convinced by Habbakkuk's argument that to save his life he must hang himself. Sir Roger, he was promised, before the rope was well about his neck, would break in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... they must be, and however unsatisfactory in themselves, may have a humble utility of their own as a first aid to the ignorant. At least, they may serve to remind a man lost in a maze amid the clatter and the clutter of our own time, that after all this century of ours is the heir of the ages, and that it is for us to profit by the best that the past has bequeathed to us. Even the most expertly selected list could do little ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... he asked as I sat down and began to wonder how he ever conducted his work in the choatic clutter of stuff on the top of ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... the willow-fringed water lanes, and saw across the wider shield of glistering water the white cube of the Nishat Bagh Pavilion—the Garden of Joy, made for Jehangir the Mogul—standing by the water's edge, and at its foot a great throng and clutter of boats, amidst whose snaky prows we pushed our way and landed, something stiff after sitting for two hours in ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... personal to the menial characteristics of Mr. Johnson's speeches, we find that his brain is to be classed with notable cases of arrested development. He has strong forces in his nature, but in their outlet through his mind they are dissipated into a confusing clutter of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable phrases. He seems to possess neither the power nor the perception of coherent thinking and logical arrangement. He does not appear to be aware that prepossessions are not proofs, that assertions are not arguments, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... Irene's side. She was trying to clamber through a trellis of iron and splintered wood. She was stretching her hand out to Drury, where he lay unconscious, deep in the clutter. Crosson dragged her away from a flame that swung toward her. She struck his hand aside and thrust her body ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... dear, I'm not going to have your dress spoiled for the lack of a yard or two. It's all fixed, and the clerk understands—and see here, don't be buying thread and linings, and such things—I've more than enough at home, so don't let's clutter ourselves with useless articles." ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the object of terror which I had seen, and, without any further consultation, fired a full volley among them, most of our pieces being loaded with two or three slugs or bullets apiece. It made a horrible clutter among them, and in general they all took to their heels, only that we could observe that some walked off with more gravity and majesty than others, being not so much frighted at the noise and fire; and we could perceive that some were left upon the ground struggling as for life, ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... decent cat, and know what is proper," continued Molly, leaning down to stroke the old puss, who blinked affectionately at her. "I can't imagine what put it into Miss Bat's head. I never said a word, and gave up groaning over the clutter, as I couldn't mend it. I just took care of Boo and myself, and left her to be as untidy as she pleased, and she is ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... a unifying force inside the frontiers of the 140 nations that presently litter and clutter the earth. Beyond each frontier, however, nationalism has become one of the most divisive sources of misunderstanding, controversy, disruption and conflict presently cursing mankind. In the exercise of their sovereignty ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... vouchsafed us. By its yellow, murky glimmer we could dimly see the great wooden ribs of the vessel, arching up on either side of us, and crossed by the huge beams which held the deck. A grievous stench from foul bilge water poisoned the close, heavy air. Every now and then, with a squeak and a clutter, a rat would dart across the little zone of light and vanish in the gloom upon the further side. Heavy breathing all round me showed that my companions, wearied out by their journey and their sufferings, had dropped into a slumber. From time to time one could hear the dismal ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... if reluctant to abandon the starry prospect without, to find him bending over a clutter of things scattered about his half-emptied case. She had been about to say that she must see to unpacking ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... the clutter of the shop gained but fleeting notice from Louise. Her gaze almost immediately fastened upon the figure of the bewhiskered old man, with spectacles and sou'wester both pushed back on his bald crown, who mildly looked upon her—his smile ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... tryin' to chew it. But, you see, my notion is, to try to give my fam'ly the sort o' stuff that's nourishin'. Not just somethin' to eat, but food. I don't believe their stummicks realize they belong to poor folks. I'm not envyin' the rich, mind you. Dear no! I wouldn't be hired to clutter up my insides with the messes I see goin' up to the tables of some I work for. Cocktails, an' entrys, an' foody-de-gra-gra, an' suchlike. No! I believe in reel, straight nourishment. The things that builds up your bones, an' gives you red blood, an' good muscle, so's you can hold ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... disappeared down the path toward the Hartman house, wishing with all her heart that the ground would swallow her up before she had to meet the enemy. Suddenly a way out of the dilemma presented itself. She searched hastily through her pockets for paper and pencil, and folding both among the clutter, she wrote her apology on a ragged, dirty scrap, and carried it to the green house, intending to leave it on the doorstep and hurry away, but as she peered cautiously around the corner of the shed she saw Mrs. Hartman ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... spoke of the silver wedding which took place there. The yard was attractive but the house (infested by the family of a poor renter) was repulsive. The upstairs chamber in which I had slept for so many years presented a filthy clutter of chicken feathers, cast-off furniture and musty clothing. Our ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... answered, 'That he had seen a frightful apparition, such a one as painters use to draw for the picture of the devil.' As this servant was not thought either faint-hearted, or a liar, the Portuguese no longer doubted, what was the meaning of all that rattling and clutter, which they heard every night; to put an end to it, they set crosses in all the rooms, after which they heard no ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... hard-smiting swords. Each of them fell to strike and to hew, to lay low and cut down, to slay and undo [3]his fellow,[3] till as large as the head of a month-old child was each lump and each cut, [4]each clutter and each clot of gore[4] that each of them took from the shoulders and thighs ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... disordered; so that I can compare em to nothing but to the Night-Goblins that take a Pleasure to over-turn the Disposition of Plates and Dishes in the Kitchens of your housewifely Maids. Well, after all this Racket and Clutter, this is too dear, that is their Aversion; another thing is charming, but not wanted: The Ladies are cured of the Spleen, but I am not a Shilling the better for it. Lord! what signifies one poor Pot of Tea, considering ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... from the superfluous, uninteresting machinery and apparatus that clutter up most illustrations in other Science Fiction magazines, your March cover remained fantastic, but human—a picture that expressed the very essence of super-scientific fiction as presented in Astounding Stories. Vivid in color, striking in subject, dramatic in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... walls of the hall were decked with elaborate, meaningless scrolls in plaster bas-relief, echoed by raised circles on the ceiling just above the hanging chandelier, which was expensive and hideous, a clutter of brass and knobby red-and-blue glass. The floor was of hardwood in squares, dark and richly polished, highly self-respecting—a floor that assumed civic responsibility from a republican point of view, and a sound conservative business established since 1875 or 1880. By the door was a huge ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the moon-broken gloom on his left. Something was there, fifty feet away, that drew him down through the muck which lay knee deep in the right-of-way ditch. It was what was left of the cutter's cabin, a clutter of burned logs, a wind scattered heap of ash. Even there, within arm's reach of the railroad, there had been no salvation ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... is, a design or implementation that may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the outside. The antonym is 'grungy' or {crufty}. 2. /v./ To remove unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter: "I'm cleaning up my account." "I cleaned up the garbage and now have 100 Meg ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Mr. Cabell and the popular romancers who in all ages clutter the scene and for whom he has nothing but amused contempt is that they are unconscious dupes of the demiurge whereas he, aware of its ways and its devices, employs it almost as if it were some hippogriff bridled by him in Elysian pastures and respectfully entertained in a snug Virginian ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... adventure into wool, and were now leading him as far from wool as might be, he was tempted. What if, in spite of Nan, he should risk it and tell Dick, once for all, why he was going away, make it clear so there should be no after-persuasions, no clutter of half understanding? He was tired of thinking about his life as a life. The temptation to such morose musing had come upon him in the last six months, and once yielded to, he felt the egotistical disease of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... mess This set is in! If there's one thing I hate Above everything else,—even more than getting my feet wet— It's clutter!—He might at least have left the scene The way he found it ... don't you say ...
— Aria da Capo • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... on the second floor in the north wing of the big house. But where Scotty's was usually neat as a barracks squad room, the result of his service in the Marines, Rick's was usually a clutter of apparatus. Living on Spindrift Island with the example of his father and the other scientists to follow, it was natural that he should be interested in science. He was more fortunate than most boys ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... two never could understand each other! So I'm just going to clean house. Get rid of things that clutter it up. I'm going, to-night, and I don't think I shall ever see you again, so do try to be pleasant while I'm packing. This last time.... Oh, I'm free again. And so are you, you poor, decent ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... {}; other italics are shown conventionally with lines. Boldface type is shown by marks. Individual bold or CAPITALIZED words within an italicized phrase should be read as non-italic, though the extra lines have been omitted to reduce clutter.] ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... and I like best for this purpose to carry a mattress when I can, or to take a sack and fill it with straw, shavings, boughs, or what not. This makes a much better bed, and can be taken out daily to the air and sun. By this I avoid the clutter there always is inside a tent filled with boughs; and, more than all, the ground or floor does not mould in damp weather, from the accumulation of rubbish ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... from yeah!" exclaimed some one who could be none other than Eradicate Sampson. "Whut fo' yo' all want to clutter up dish yeah place fo'? Massa Tom said I was to do de garden wuk, an' I'se gwine to do it! G'wan ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... around, trying to discern the anciently familiar configuration of the land under its clutter of buildings. ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London |
