"Devil-may-care" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'My devil-may-care acquaintance,' said Mr Chester—'really if you do not draw some nicer distinctions, your career will be cut short with most surprising suddenness. Don't you know that the letter you brought to me, was directed to my son who resides in this very place? ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... became serious. The devil-may-care, irresponsible shamelessness of his face dropped away like a mask. Something had touched him. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pencil, and said, "Thank you very much, old fellow. There's no other boy in the house would have done it for me but you or Arthur. I can see well enough," he went on, after a pause, "all the best big fellows look on me with suspicion; they think I'm a devil-may-care, reckless young scamp. So I am—eleven hours out of twelve, but not the twelfth. Then all of our contemporaries worth knowing follow suit, of course: we're very good friends at games and all that, but not a soul ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... in question, August Frohlich, seems to have been a little more fortunate in that respect, for Frohlich in German means "merry," and I have yet to find a man who is more devil-may-care or happy-go-lucky, in spite of all his family responsibilities, than Mr. ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... ride, Mr. Wrenn laughed aloud. With a comfortable feeling on the side toward the fire he stuck his slight legs straight out before the old-time settle, looked devil-may-care, made delightful ridges on the sanded floor with his toe, and clapped a pewter pot on his knee with a small emphatic "Wop!" After about two and a quarter tankards he broke out, "Say, that peddler guy there, don't he look like he was a ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... on every feature. His restless, nervous eyes were slightly bloodshot, and there was a constant twitching about his lips. But as he pushed back the shutter and leaned carelessly against the sill, there was an easy grace in his figure and a devil-may-care light in his eyes that would have stirred the heart of a maiden less susceptible than the one who smiled upon him from between the ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... him in the village, and he felt he had taken all the whisky that cloves would conceal, he took a five-cent cigar instead of a drink. He did not particularly like the smoking of it, but there was a certain devil-may-care recklessness in going down the street with a lighted cigar in his teeth, which had all the more fascination for him because of its manifest danger. He felt at these times that he was going the pace, and that it is well our women do not know of all the wickedness there is in this world. He did ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... horse like a statue. It makes my old eyes moist and my throat choky to this day to think of it, for I loved him through everything. Could he have had command of heavy horse, and won his rest on some glorious field, brave, headstrong, devil-may-care Dan; but there he sat and looked on the Cassandra, and his eyes were laughing from his stern face as he took a turn on ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... wrapped, devouring these with divided relish, and learning the news which had transpired since we sailed. The river here opened into a broad and straight reach of great length, which we bounded merrily over before a smacking breeze, with a devil-may-care look in our faces, and our boat a white bone in its mouth, and a speed which greatly astonished some scow boatmen whom we met. The wind in the horizon rolled like a flood over valley and plain, and every tree bent to the blast, and the mountains ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... ladies, and kept peering hither and thither to see whether the Governor's footmen had set out green tables for whist. Their features were full and plump, some of them had beards, and in no case was their hair curled or waved or arranged in what the French call "the devil-may-care" style. On the contrary, their heads were either close-cropped or brushed very smooth, and their faces were round and firm. This category represented the more respectable officials of the town. In passing, I may say that in business ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... two quid a week. He drank again, and no wonder—you don't know what it is to run a 'Geebung Advocate' or 'Mudgee Budgee Chronicle', and live there. He was about the same build as the Lachlan, but stouter, and had something the same kind of eyes; but he was ordinarily as careless and devil-may-care as the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... Rita. Don't be so stuck up. It won't hurt you to be kissed." Doug was a bold, devil-may-care youth, who spoke his mind freely upon all occasions. He was of enormous size, and gloried in the fact that he was the neighborhood bully and very, very "tough." Doug would have you know that Doug would drink; Doug would gamble; Doug would fight. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... crags owe something of their sublimity to this—that if they be tempted, they can take the warm life of a man. To the contagionist, filled as he is with the dread of final causes, having no faith in destiny nor in the fixed will of God, and with none of the devil-may-care indifference which might stand him instead of creeds—to such one, every rag that shivers in the breeze of a plague-stricken city has this sort of sublimity. If by any terrible ordinance he be forced to venture forth, he sees death dangling from every sleeve, and ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... chieftain; and the effect was intensified by a flaring red handkerchief around his head and the haft of a knife protruding from his waistband. The rowers behind him, though of varying degrees of swarthiness and height, all had the same sinewy build, the same bold stare, the same devil-may-care insolence of manner; and though none but the lookout wore the piratical red around his brow, more than one knife hilt showed at their waists. The steersman, whose copper-brown skin and flat face betokened a heavy ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... there—that is, the main body. Kendrick noted, with sudden uneasiness, that there were stragglers. A gaily decorated old rooster, a fowl with a dissipated and immoral swagger and a knowing, devil-may-care tilt of the head, was sidling off to the left. Two or three young pullets were following the lead of this ancient pirate, evidently fascinated by his recklessness. The captain turned to head off the wanderers. They squawked and ran hither and thither. He succeeded in turning ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... be my master, then. I couldn't pay my way home if they'd take me as freight," replies the lieutenant, in the downright and devil-may-care style which is one of his several pronounced characteristics. "Of course," he continues presently, "I would like to look in on the mother again; she's getting on in years now and isn't over and above strong, but she has no cares or worries to speak of; she don't know what a reprobate I am; ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... world of censorious fools, and as if he knew it. The strange thing was that the jury were evidently impressed if not carried away, by his appeal. They sat forward, stared at Sir John as if fascinated, and even began to assume little airs which were almost devil-may-care. But when, with a precise and deliberately cold acuteness, Sir John turned to the evidence adverse to his client, and began to tear it to shreds, they stared less, frowned, and showed by their expressions ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... there was much blood upon his face which he essayed to wipe away with the cuff of his coat. Now, upon his whole person, from the crown of his unkempt head down to his broken, dusty boots, there yet clung that air of jaunty, devil-may-care rakishness which I had seen, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... made the gray moustache of his Eminence curl with ire. Treville understood admirably the war method of that period, in which he who could not live at the expense of the enemy must live at the expense of his compatriots. His soldiers formed a legion of devil-may-care fellows, perfectly undisciplined toward all ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
