"Cryptic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cryptic apothegm Mr. Latz's knee touched Mrs. Samstag's, so that he sprang back full of nerves at what ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the cryptic way the missionary came to the climax of his story. Again the Southern Cross shot into view as we turned a ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... in the same limestone plain add something to the mystery that overhangs all the rest. The first, at Lennan in Monaghan, is marked with a curious cryptic design, suggesting a clue, yet yielding none. There is a like script on the cromlech at Castlederg in Tyrone, if indeed the markings were ever the record of some thought to be remembered, and not mere ornament. The chambered cromlech of Lisbellaw in ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... forgotten it; he produced it from his pocket, and—perhaps in consideration of the tip he had received from Miss Morley—he did not confiscate the spool, but handed it over intact with a polite gesture and a cryptic smile. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... the cryptic answer. 'And yet, Herbert,' Lawford solemnly began again, 'it has changed me; even in my way of thinking. When I shut my eyes now—I only discovered it by chance—I see immediately faces quite strange ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... fantasy begins in the mood of the early Allegro; a wistful melody of the clarinet plays more slowly between cryptic reminders of the first theme of the symphony. In sudden Allegro risoluto over rumbling bass of strings, a mystic call of horns, harking far back, spreads its echoing ripples all about till it rises in united tones, with a clear, descending answer, much ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... Field!" a voice behind him cried. "What are those cryptic rites that you're performing? What on earth are you bowing into a hairdresser's window for?"—a smooth, melodious voice, tinged by an inflection that was half ironical, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... a cryptic, gray woman kissed her glacially on the forehead, and pointed out the potatoes which were not yet peeled for breakfast. Mary sat in a wooden chair and decorticated spuds, with a thrill ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... She uttered a cryptic sentence or two. It should have amounted to identification, but there was skepticism in ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... the Drama." This cryptic passage refers, I imagine, to a translation by John Black, afterwards the editor of the Morning Chronicle, of August Von Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, 2 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... We rather look forward to it. It means one day less of waiting for the trains." It was rather cryptic, but Leslie was too deeply absorbed in self-pity to take account of the ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... a cryptic speech. In another it might have signified a spitefulness unthinkable in Sylvia Armytage; therefore it puzzled him very deeply. He stood silent, wondering what precisely she might mean, and thus in silence they continued for a ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... said nothing to Mr. Murphy when Cappy Ricks' cryptic cablegram was received. Insofar as Matt was concerned, that cablegram closed the argument, for even had it seemed to demand a reply the master of the Retriever would not—nay could not, have answered, for ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... one another. They repeated vaguely this most commonplace of messages. As the final result of their strenuous enterprise, these cryptic words seemed pitifully inadequate. Quest's face darkened. He crumpled the ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those were for Jefferson Creede! Deep and devious as was his knowledge of men in the rough, the ways of a woman in love were as cryptic to him as the poems of Browning. The first day that Miss Kitty rode forth to be a cowboy it was the rodeo boss, indulgent, but aware of the tenderfoot's ability to make trouble, who soberly assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could possibly come. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... at her in mild surprise. Doubtless he would have asked the meaning of this cryptic utterance; but at this moment the two seamen from the Milo issued forth from the gateway up the road; and, descending a few paces, turned to call back farewell to Mrs. Treacher, who, having escorted them so far, halted under the arch and stood, with hands on hips, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... times to all animals, is absolutely essential to some; and it is wonderful in what different ways it is attained. In cases of "cryptic resemblance to surroundings" the shape, colouration, or markings are such as to conceal an animal by rendering it difficult to distinguish from its immediate environment. In most cases the effect is PROTECTIVE; but in snakes, spiders, mantids, and other preying animals ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... at my colleague in amazement, and was about to ask for some elucidation of this cryptic reply, when he held up his finger and ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... would have been no use attempting to instruct Lubin in the cryptic properties of the quincunx, or any other theories of garden arrangement propounded by Sir Thomas Browne. And Aunt Charlotte would have proved a still more hopeless subject. She had no head for mysticism, poor dear, and Austin often told her she was one of the greatest sceptics he had ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the first stages of one of her expeditions into another's territory, Jimmie's first letter arrived. It was mailed at Honolulu, and consisted obediently of the cryptic statement: "There is no girl on the boat. She is a widow, but lots of fun." And it changed the character of the invasion from a harmless survey of the land to a determined attack upon its fortresses. And so Gilbert Stevenson, ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... Cryptic words which, suddenly, for Beautrelet, shone bright with clearness! Was this not an exact statement of the reasons that determined Francis I. to create a town on this spot and was not the fate of the Havre-de-Grace linked with the very ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... Miss Theodosia's cryptic little smile lingered on her lips and in the clear windows of her eyes, as she gazed past the voluble wife of Andrew, through her vines, at the little House of Children next door. She imagined she heard Stefana ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... "See the slim iceberg with the top afire!" Cairns had whispered, as she entered. Other lives must explain it, but the Titian hair went straight to his heart. And those wine-dark eyes, now cryptic black, now suffused with red glows like a night-sky above a prairie-fire, said to him, "Better come over and see ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... the words that thou took'st unawares Be as serpiants that twine and are spiteful, O thou best of good creeturs, who cares? For the curse hath recoiled, and the stigma Thou hast turned to her sorrer and shame, While thy cryptic and sombre Enigma Is ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... so—so cryptic—such a very abstruse problem. Sometimes I think I understand you better than you do yourself, and sometimes I am utterly lost; now, if you were younger I could read you easily for myself, and, if you were older, you would ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... returned, and the twins, their eyes bright with the unholy light of mischief, never looked at her. They sometimes looked heavenward with a sublime contentment that drove Connie nearly frantic. Occasionally they uttered cryptic words about the morrow,—and the older members of the family smiled pleasantly, but Connie shuddered. She remembered so many April ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... sophisticated or cynical to respond to natural impulses. Of the half dozen or so of colored women writing creditable verse, Anne Spencer is the most modern and least obvious in her methods. Her lines are at times involved and turgid and almost cryptic, but she shows an originality which does not depend upon eccentricities. In her "Before the Feast of Shushan" she displays an opulence, the love of which has long been charged against the Negro as one of his naive and childish traits, but which in art may infuse a much needed color, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... meaning of this latent dread. He set it down to his suspicions of Mrs. Marteen's departure. Then why this fibril anxiety never to be long beyond call? Surely, and the demon in his brain laughed with amusement, he did not expect her to send him a cryptic wireless—"Everything arranged; operation a success; appendix removed without opposition," or "Patient unmanageable; ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... he would have done all the housekeeping himself. Fortunately for the peace of that family this was impossible. However, he exercised as much supervision over the menage as was possible, even to the extent of looking over the tradesmen's books. Of course he did not understand their cryptic symbols in the least, and it was a funny sight to see little Hildebrand poring over the small red books, and puckering his conscientious brows in an agony of puzzlement. Every now and then he would turn for enlightenment to his wife, ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Scarlet too? Then bitter anomalies annul her choir Of puissant and subtle instincts, rended through By gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire. For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines, And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason: The spirit of imagination pines, Captive in webs of exquisite unreason. Alas for this translated soul of hers, The rose's, ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... hours. He would bound off on false scents as I had done—he would clap his hands over new lights and see them blown out by the wind of the turned page. He was like nothing, I told him, but the maniacs who embrace some bedlamitical theory of the cryptic character of Shakespeare. To this he replied that if we had had Shakespeare's own word for his being cryptic he would immediately have accepted it. The case there was altogether different—we had nothing but the word of Mr. Snooks. I rejoined that I was stupefied to see him attach such importance ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... precautions he takes to keep them intensely private. "Why he went and had all his special numbers here changed once just because I found out one of them by mistake and called him up on it for a joke—the cryptic old person!" Peter ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... perception of that which is hidden from the uninitiated, is a common mark of all refinement, aesthetic as well as moral. In studying the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa,' for instance, one will find that it is this interior insight that explains the so-called "cryptic smile." In the case of aesthetic refinement, the secret discloses itself as at bottom delicacy, the delicacy which prevents intrusion on the personality of others; which abhors a prying curiosity; which finds subtle ways of conveying esteem and delicate ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... These two cryptic words seeming to be perfectly understood below, followed the sound of a body plunging into water, a prolonged "Wow!" from the bathroom, and noisy hurried splashing. Dressing was a rapid process, due to a method learned during college days, which consists of wearing as little as possible, and ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... capacity of our race to "muddle through" to some more or less satisfactory settlement. This was especially the case in the spring and summer of 1880, when the accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the disaster of Maiwand changed the diplomatic and military situation. In one sense, and that not a cryptic one, these events served to supplement one another. They rendered inevitable the entire evacuation of Afghanistan. That, it need hardly be said, was the policy of Mr. Gladstone, of the Secretary for India, Lord Hartington (now Duke of ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the same rate of loss, the German casualties would amount to 12,250,000, which is almost unthinkable. Its very destructiveness should tend to shorten the duration of this terrible war. As Mr. Asquith said at the opening of Parliament, in a curiously cryptic and significant passage: "The war may last long. I doubt myself if it will last as long as many people originally predicted." God grant that this may ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... meal and well into the afternoon Percival puzzled his brain over that cryptic warning. When its meaning dawned upon him he flung "Guillim's Display of Heraldry" clear across the room, and used language not becoming an English gentleman. He assured himself for the hundredth time that Americans were the most odious people ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... only about an hour and twenty minutes. There was still at least an hour before it would be possible for her to plead weariness and escape. And opposite, in the shadows of the distant box, the mock Prince Shan seemed always to be gazing at her with that cryptic ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... height, some of the clay would become attached to its rough skin by attrition. The downway must have been easy work, but the ascent was different, and when the monster came to view in the upper world, it would be fresh from contact with the white clay. Hence the name, which has no cryptic significance, but only fact. Now, if that surmise be true—and I do not see why not—there must be a deposit of ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... was somewhat taken aback by the cryptic utterance; but an anxious-looking younger son of an embarrassed peer, who for a considerable consideration was bear-leading the millionaire through the social labyrinth, hurriedly interpreted it to him as a standing invitation to dinner. He thanked ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... score of his discoveries behind a door, in cryptic chalk strokes. He does this, says Mr. Walters, because, being Helena, he would betray himself if he wrote in a female hand. But nobody would WRITE secrets on a door! He adds "a moderate stroke," after meeting the hag, though, says Mr. Walters, "Edwin Drood would have ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... good sir," cried the lieutenant, "you were sent here in charge of him for some cryptic idea of the captain, and you tell me he's gone? You don't mean to tell me that you've ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... smaller worlds circling about it. Between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow-heads of the oldest form pointing in all directions, while all the intervening spaces were filled up with woven characters half-way in appearance between Runes and Cryptic-Sanskrit. Round the borders these characters ran into a wild maze, a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a wizard could have forced a way in ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... name. For us Claudine was almost a mythical personage. All of us acted in the same way, reconciling the requirements of our common life with the rules of good taste. Claudine, Hortense, the Baroness, the Bourgeoise, the Empress, the Spaniard, the Lioness,—these were cryptic titles which permitted us to pour out our joys, our cares, vexations, and hopes, and to communicate our discoveries. Further, none of us went. It has been shown, in Bohemia, that chance discovered the identity of ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... leads northwards to South Malling; here is a conventicle named "Jireh" erected by J. Jenkyns, W.A. These cryptic initials mean "Welsh ambassador." In the cemetery behind is the tomb of William Huntingdon, the evangelist, whose epitaph ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... whole, Nietzsche is not difficult to understand, although there has arisen a host of commentators to obscure his meaning, although Nietzsche himself delights in expressing himself in the form of cryptic and mystic aphorism, although he continuously contradicts himself. But apart from those difficulties, his message is strikingly simple and his personality is singularly transparent. And his message and his personality are one. He is a convincing illustration of Fichte's dictum, that any great system ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea |
