"Scratchy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dignity, colour, or force of character, as in the portraits of John Hunter and General Heathfield for example. It may be conceded that more refinement, and perhaps more individuality, is to be found in Gainsborough, but his manner (and both were mannerists) was scratchy and thin, while that of Reynolds was manly and rich. Neither Reynolds nor Gainsborough was capable of anything ideal; but the work of Reynolds indicates thought and reading, and I do not know of anything by Gainsborough conveying ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... you're being suspicious," I said, lousy with virtue. "Quit worrying. I'm going to call Harry again." This time I was a lot calmer. I decided to trust the universe a little more. I dialed Harry's number again. A scratchy male voice answered: ...
— Sorry: Wrong Dimension • Ross Rocklynne
... woods you read about are mere scratchy little collections of a few tree-stumps splintered and wrecked beyond belief. Things lie scattered everywhere in aimless profusion. Muddy rifles, coats, boots, and every description of kit, both British and Hun. I have met lots ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... Some scratchy strokes—abrupt and few, So easily and swift I drew, Sufficed for my design; My sketchy, superficial hand Drew solids at a dash—and spanned A surface with ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the restaurant, where, no sooner did she pick out just the right table, after some hesitation, and get nicely seated, than she'd see someone across the room at a far table and have to run over and speak. She spoke to parties at five distant tables that day, getting a scratchy lunch, I should say. One of the tables was mine. We wasn't what you'd call close friends, but she cut a swath clean across a crowded dining room to tell me how well I ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... note that it was secured, when I thought I heard a noise outside. I stood perfectly silent, and listened. Yes! Now I could distinctly hear a sound of whispering, and something slithered over the panels, with a rasping, scratchy noise. Evidently, some of the brutes were feeling with their claw-hands, about the door, to discover whether there ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... etching by Salvator Rosa from one of his own pictures. On pressing her to tell us, which she preferred, after a little blushing and flutter of feeling, she replied "Why, that, Sir, to be sure! (pointing to the ware from the Fleet-street print shops);—it's so neat and elegant. T'other is such a scratchy slovenly thing." An artist, whose writings are scarcely less valuable than his pictures, and to whose authority more deference will be willingly paid, than I could even wish should be shown to mine, has told us, and from ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that you're right once in a while," he said in a scratchy, sleepy voice, walking past her to switch on the ceiling of the room on the right ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... is no longer frequently used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that some persons of apparent intelligence and business ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a universal custom to wear scratchy flannels next the skin in winter; that a violin is not inherently more immoral than a chapel organ; that some poets do not have long hair; and that Jews are not always pedlers ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... already it requires frequent shakings to make it write at all. I thought it would be a blessing, it threatens to become a curse. I foresee that very shortly I shall descend again to a pencil, or write my letters with the aid of scratchy pens and fat, respectable ink-pots ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... the world like a bit o' good cider vinegar to keep off the festerin'. It may seem a trifle scratchy fer the moment, but it assassinates the blood-p'ison. There ye go! It's the fine thing fer ye, Joe—what ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... more use to you when we come to talk of composition, than they are at present; still, it will do you a great deal of good, sometimes to try how far you can get their delicate texture, or gradations of tone: as your pen-and-ink drawing will be apt to incline too much to a scratchy and broken kind of shade. For instance, the texture of the white convent wall, and the drawing of its tiled roof, in the vignette at p. 227 of Rogers's Poems, is as exquisite as work can possibly ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... There are few drives more enjoyable than a drive along the Vienne to the royal retreat of Chinon. The country is rich and noble, deep in grass and maize and corn, with meadows set in low broad hedgerows, and bare scratchy vineyards along the slopes. The road is lined with acacias, Tennyson's "milk-white bloom" hanging from their tender feathery boughs, and here beneath the hot sun of the South the acacia is no mere garden shrub but one of the finest ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... out one of his remaining four: the stranger took it. And then he began to rub it on a stone, and continued to rub while Rodriguez watched in silence, until the image of the lord the King was gone and the face of the coin was scratchy and shiny and flat. And then he produced from a pocket or pouch in his jacket a graving tool with a round wooden handle, which he took in the palm of his hand, and the edge of the steel came out between ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... forget old scores. Of course, though, you understand why, and I tell you only for the pleasure of writing the words. I loved you, Gemma, when you were an ugly little girl in a gingham frock, with a scratchy tucker and your hair in a pig-tail down your back; and I love you still. Do you remember that day when I kissed your hand, and when you so piteously begged me 'never to do that again'? It was a scoundrelly trick to play, I know; but you must forgive that; and ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... are ever published. As regards the 'blind' part, that may be an advantage, for dictating relieves one of the drudgery of writing one's self, and gives one a chance for a fuller play of one's fancies than if tied to a piece of wood, a scratchy pen, and a bottle of ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... up, running a hand through his hair. The red bristles were scratchy on his palm. It was a cover-up, a substitute symbol to bring his nervous system back under full control. The process felt as if he were being tumbled ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... entirely unruffled. "Your face is scratchy. Come on, you folks; I'm going to buy you a dinner." And, leading the way into the first likely-looking place, she ordered a comprehensive meal which started with pickles and ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... by at a counter a Gentleman Goose in a long apron was weighing feathers on a very small pair of scales, and at his elbow stood a little duck apprentice with the tears running down his cheeks. He was doing sums in a greasy sort of butcher's book that seemed quite full already of funny scratchy figures. ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... of the letter. He could not recognize the faint, scratchy, uncertain characters as anything he had ever seen before. After all, the whole thing might be an imposture, and he himself an exceedingly great dupe, to suffer his feelings to be enlisted by a perfect stranger, merely because that stranger happened to be a counterpart ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... over the roasted Servetus. He abhorred the departed heroes of the golden evolution from Eidegenossen into Higuerios and later Huguenots. They interested him not, neither did he love Professor Calame's scratchy pictures, nor the jumbled bric-a-brac of art and history. None of these charmed him. He waited only for the gliding step, the clasp of a burning hand, and the flash of the lustrous dark-brown eyes. It was his own ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... earth wasn't good enough for me to step on. It certainly isn't becoming, and it would make me furious if anybody looked at me in such a cool, scornful way. I know that I feel that way inside whenevah I talk to Fidelia. I wondah if she sees it in my face, and that's what makes her cross and scratchy, like a cat that has had its fur rubbed the wrong way. Just for fun I believe I'll pretend to myself for ten minutes that I love her deahly, and I'll smile when I talk to her, just as if she were Betty, and nevah pay any attention to her mean ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Elias," was Desmond's commentary, as he sprang out of bed and made for the bathroom. At a quarter to one he was ready dressed, feeling very scratchy and uncomfortable about the beard which he had not dared to remove owing to Nur-el-Din's presence in the house. Before he left the bedroom, he paused a moment at the desk, the documents of the Bellward case in his ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... his mother. But he was cross and his face flushed up so that in the afternoon his teacher sent him home. "And I don't want this scratchy flannel on! I like the other better; can't I ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... aout I went and tramped through four feet of snow to the store and there lay yer welcome wad as neat as a piney in a little box over the caounter, and the lamp throwin' a pinky glow over its side, and that scratchy old handwritin' o' yourn I'd knowed three rod off. Thar it lay kinder laughin' at me and slanted so's I could jest read it. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... sort of adventure this is!" thought the Elephant. "It's almost as bad as being pitched out into a snow drift, though I'm glad it isn't cold. These oats are very scratchy, though, and they make me want to sneeze. ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... those striped stockings," said Faith stubbornly. "The feel of them is even worse than the looks. They make me feel as if my legs were as big as barrels and they're so SCRATCHY." ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Shimerdas for wanting to give away everything they had. Even the mother was always offering me things, though I knew she expected substantial presents in return. We stood there in friendly silence, while the feeble minstrel sheltered in Antonia's hair went on with its scratchy chirp. The old man's smile, as he listened, was so full of sadness, of pity for things, that I never afterward forgot it. As the sun sank there came a sudden coolness and the strong smell of earth and drying grass. Antonia and her ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... "sew for her" I do not mean make her dresses, but do the little odd things that mothers of families always do, and which must remain undone if she is sick, unless you do them. Do not write letters when on duty, and, above all things, do not write with a scratchy pen. To a nervous person the sound of a scratchy pen traveling over the paper is torturing, and it can be heard even if you are in the next room. A fountain pen is, I think, the best to use. See that it is full before you go to your case, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery |
