"Funny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "That's funny now," muttered Andy, who, being less keen than his cousin, could not let suspicion find lodgment in his brain as quickly either. "But perhaps Frank may know who they are. He keeps pretty well posted on everybody connected with aviation meets and inventions. Marsh, he said his name was; what ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... removals the family located at Smithville." Some dictionaries give locate as an intransitive verb having that meaning, but—well, dictionaries are funny. ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... Lit. "I warrant you! (quoth Socrates) and there's another funny notion we have every chance of ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... you ever see anything like that!" cried John, amazed at the funny sight. "It's great, I say! I'd like ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... ranger, stroking his chin reflectively, "being as its you and further, being that I've broken bacon with you and heard a real funny joke from Miss Dean here, I reckon I don't. 'Bye, folks. See you some other time." The ranger led out his horse, mounted ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... sixty-five authors who try to write new fairy tales are very tiresome. They always begin with a little boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms: 'Flowers and fruits, and other winged things.' These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed. Real fairies never preach or talk slang. At the end, the little boy or girl wakes up and finds that ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the exciting pieces and the funny farces, and all the pretty dresses and pretty undresses and the pretty girls and pretty music of the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... my address and there are the directories," he continued. "The funny part of it is, too, that I heard from Mrs. Bundercombe a week or so ago, and she never said a word about any ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tinkled all kinds of drums, castanets, bells, fiddles; many of them having strange shapes and shrill noises. Funny, fat-cheeked boys were blowing the very life out of the flutes. All were ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... to me I remember once, a long time ago, when he made a joke that was so funny that we all laughed at it," said Joe. "It hardly seems possible, but I'm almost ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... Lettie," he muttered, "that I'd find out all about that boy—and maybe bring him home with me. Funny that man gave his such a bad character. Wish I could have seen the lad's face the other night—that would have told ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... getting to be one of my regular pleasures now, as I go up and down the world,—looking upon the man's body,—the little funny one that he thinks he has, and then stretching my soul and looking upon the one that he really has. When one considers what a man actually does, where he really lives, one sees very plainly that all that he has been allowed is a mere suggestion or hint of a body, a sort of central nerve or ganglion ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... McNally, the washerwoman, had come over to take care of the washing. I remember I was just on my way out to the wood pile for a few sticks of birch when I heard wheels turn in at the gate. There was one of the fattest white horses I ever saw, and a queer wagon, shaped like a van. A funny-looking little man with a red beard leaned forward from the seat and said something. I didn't hear what it was, I was looking at that ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... day Addie called about ten in the morning, before I was down. She was really quite funny ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... retired spot, brooding, apparently over his fate. He never smiled, though I who have been much in China, tried to stir him from his sadness by exclamations and gestures. His race has a very keen sense of humor. They see a thousand funny things about them, and laugh inwardly; but they never see anything amusing in themselves. The individual man conceives himself a dignified figure in a ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... care of Uncle Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long Jack entreated Harvey to remember his lessons in seamanship; but the jokes fell flat in the presence of the two women, and it is hard to be funny with green harbour-water widening ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... laughing professionally at the prospective buyer's funny story when the telephone on his desk buzzed. He said: "Excuse me for a minute, old man," to the customer—Hopkins, the ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... have been—sufficient, at any rate, to enable him to lend money to people. These two had a duet down there, like conspirators in a comic opera, of "Sh—ssh, shssh! Secrecy! Secrecy!" It must have been funny, because they were very ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... kind of a whistle, so faint that it seemed little more than the echo of one; but Phil heard, and instantly his head was poked out between his curtains. Stuart held me up and grinned. Immediately Phil held up Matches and grinned. After a funny pantomime by which, with many laughable gestures, each boy made the other understand that he intended to allow his pet freedom all night, they drew in their heads and ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... a company of monkeys came leaping upon the rock. The monkeys jumped about, grinning at the same time and performing funny tricks. ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... arms to another to give an exhibition of his progress in the noble art of locomotion; and if he now and again sat down, unexpectedly to himself and to the spectator, he was promptly put upon his feet again with spurious applause and encouragement. He gave an exhibition of his dancing—a funny little shuffle of exceeding temerity, considering the facilities at his command for that agile amusement, but he was made reckless by praise—and they all lied valiantly in chorus. He repeated all the words he knew, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the papers are full of it? Papa read it this morning at breakfast, and he laughed until he cried. Where is that Irishman who gets you into so many funny scrapes?" ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... tired of watching the squirrels!" cried Annie, who had been looking for some time at the lively little animals scampering in the trees; "just look what funny little things ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... everywhere he heard yells and bays down in the canyon, and once he had heard a loud rattling crash of a heavy bear tearing through the thicket. Edd told of the fearful climb he and his father had made, how they had shot at the grizzly a long way off, how funny another bear had rolled around in his bed across the canyon. But the hounds got too tired to hold the trails late in the day. And lastly Edd said: "When you an' Ben were smokin' the grizzly I could hear the bullets hit close above us, an' I was sure scared ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... to the Mistress. No—the Mistress said to the Maid—" He stopped abruptly, and raised himself erect in the chair; he threw up both his hands above his head, and burst into a frightful screaming laugh. "Aha-ha-ha-ha! How funny! Why don't you laugh? Funny, ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... 'Duchess,' you are too funny! There's nothing 'terrible' about MY 'sky-machine!' Do you ever read poetry? No?—Well then you don't know that lovely and ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... funny thing," he said. "When Ivory and I meet casually, we simply nod as though we'd never shared each other's tents; but when we are both caught out in society, we fly together and hobnob like long-lost brothers. We've made three trips together. Every one of 'em was planned at some ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... world is French, and such French too as they talk. I have'nt caught the meaning of one word since I have been here. I forgot to say that though I began this letter on board the "Montreal" I am now writing at an Hotel in Sherbrooke. It was very funny to see the changes that took place in the attire of some of the passengers when we were nearing Quebec. People (among whom perhaps I ought to class myself) who had remained unshaved and disreputable during the voyage, in old clothes, etc., now come out of their ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... it's doing around here," said Harry. "And it seems funny to me if an English army aviator has started out without enough petrol in his tank to see him through any flight he might be making. And wouldn't he have headed for one of his supply stations as soon as he found he was running short, instead of coming ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... knew what Would soon be its lot, When Frederick and Jenky set hob-nobbing,[1] And said to each other, "Suppose, dear brother, "We make this funny ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... shine and shadow together. This is why the humourist has always the gift of pathos; though the gift of pathos does not equally imply the gift of humour. The tragic writer must always produce one-sided work, so must the "funnyman" who were only a "funny man" and not a humourist (though this is rarer). Each can only show one side of life at a time; the humourist alone can show both. Great novels of romance and adventure, great works of imagination, great poems, may be written by persons without humour; but only the humourist can reproduce life. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... what jokers you are! I know you are very funny, but I don't understand your jokes; indeed, ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... greater, even from the first too, in respect to leaving him. He had put the question to her again that afternoon, on the repetition of her appeal—had asked her once more what she supposed he wished to do. He recalled, on his bench in the Regent's Park, the freedom of fancy, funny and pretty, with which she had answered; recalled the moment itself, while the usual hansom charged them, during which he felt himself, disappointed as he was, grimacing back at the superiority of her very "humour," in its added grace of gaiety, to the celebrated solemn ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... very dignified! It must have been quite funny," she commented, between paroxysms of laughter. "I wish I could have ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... caught making some of what they call 'wash sales' of stock. It's against the rules of the Exchange to do that, and the papers have been full of the row. You can see," says Dillaway, "how the laundry question kind of stirred the old lady up. But, Lord! it must have been funny," and he commenced ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... over with butter and forty-'leven necklaces around my neck and flowers in my hair! They thought I was some kind of heathen god! Hanuman, somebody told me. The Hindu monkey-god!" He raged. "And those two big apes think it's funny! Joe, I never knew I knew all the words for the cussings I gave those heathen before our fellas found me! And Haney and the Chief will drive me crazy if I can't slap 'em down! Powder metallurgy does the trick, from what you told me. ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... see this before?" she inquired irrelevantly, looking up with her eyes as she leaned over the handful. "Good for colds. Makes your nose feel all funny and prickly." ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... funny little Molly, that you could have been here clairvoyantly. It was one of those scenes, just touched with that fine and almost imperceptible perfume of the ludicrous, in which you especially delight. There are a thousand minute shreds of the absurd which my duller ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... "It seems funny to call such a kid 'Cap'n,'" he said. And then he added apologetically, "It's 'cause I've sailed under so many grayheads, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... good a business man as I gave you credit for being," the Colonel retorted mirthfully "Two hundred and fifty dollars! Oh, Lord! Poundstone, you're funny. Upon my word, you're a scream." And the Colonel gave himself up to a sincerely hearty laugh. "You call it a retainer," he continued presently, "but a grand jury might call it something else. However," he went on after a slight pause, "you're ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... stick to my job no matter what they do. In the country I worked like a dog a few weeks a year, but here I'll probably have to work like that all the time. It's the way things go. I thought it was mighty funny, all this talk about the factory work being so easy. I wish the old days were back. I don't see how that inventor or his inventions ever helped us workers. Dad was right about him. He said an inventor wouldn't do nothing for workers. He said ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... place anyway," explained Harcraft to Arnold, who had come up to the control room. "It's a mining and processing settlement. Maybe five hundred families altogether. Got a funny ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... could a girl like that do to gold that was securely packed? But women had been mixed up in ugly work about gold before, and somehow the vision of my dream girl standing by the safe stuck to me all that day. Suppose I had helped her to cover up a theft from Dudley! It was funny; but the ludicrous side of it did not strike me. What did was that I must see her alone and get rid of the poisonous distrust of her that she, or Marcia, had put into my head. But that day went by, and two more on top of it, and I had no chance ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... puffs, Miss Fowler did, and one day, when I was at the blackboard and she was looking the other way, I just dropped the baby doll into one of the puffs that the hair-pin had come out of, and that was standing up on end, and it looked so funny on her head, the puff with the baby doll standing in it, that all the girls laughed, and then she asked me what I had done, and I told her, and she struck me. I wouldn't have said anything if she had just punished me. I knew it was wrong to pop that doll on ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... something, and for your life cannot tell what. I should not wonder very much if some of you were afraid of the dark. I have heard children talk about being afraid of the dark. You laugh, perhaps. It is rather funny—almost too funny to be treated seriously. Well, if it is not the dark, what is it you are afraid of? Your parents, and others who are older than you, are alone in the dark a thousand times in the course of a year. Did you ever hear ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... him the banner, and oh, boy, that kid did look funny, holding it up. He was scowling as if he thought he could frighten buildings out of the way. The stuff he had inside of his patented megaphone kept rattling and he sounded like a junk dealers' ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... I will," thought Bill to himself; "if it's only to see these blackamoors grinning, and rolling their eyes, and shrieking, and clapping their hands in the funny way they do." ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... whirling his arms, then suddenly grinned and, taking a tablet of black tobacco out of his pocket, bit a piece off with a funny show of ferocity. Another new hand—a man with shifty eyes and a yellow hatchet face, who had been listening open-mouthed in the shadow of the midship locker—observed in a squeaky voice:—"Well, it's a 'omeward trip, anyhow. Bad or good, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... you, Davy; perhaps I am just a little careless, as you say; but all the same it's funny how my things always go. Hope, now, I don't lose that splendid little aluminum compass I bought the other day, thinking that it might save me from getting lost in the ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... intellectual style they have striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put off the nascetur ridiculus mus—to avoid showing the funny little creature that is born after such mighty throes—often make it difficult to know what it is that they really mean. And then, too, they write down words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching any meaning to ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... spared Rusha for a week, and it was funny to see how the girl wondered at its having been possible to live in such a den. She absolutely cried when Ben told her how hard they had been living, and said she did not think Stead would ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance or skill or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape bedizened with its tattered finery, and, as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin—a funny kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked, the better she ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... of those people who are always trying to say and look funny things. Sometimes he succeeded, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... real love, which we never forgot, nor the look that the tired man and the tender woman gave one another. It was half tragic and comic, for father was very dirty and sleepy, and mother in a big nightcap and funny old jacket. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... parrot, and a monkey once lived together in a funny little red house, with one great round window like a big eye set in the front. And they were a very happy family as long as they had an old woman to cook their dinner and mend their clothes. But one sad day the old woman was taken ill and died, ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... talk about Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merriman, prescribes Toole. If we are very innocent we may inquire what night we are to go, but if we do we are at once told that it doesn't in the least matter when we go, for it is always equally funny. Poor Toole! to be made up every night as a safe prescription for the blues! To make people laugh is not necessarily a crime, but to adopt as your trade the making people laugh by delivering for a hundred nights together ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... great was the glee with which everybody persecuted him and knocked him about the ring! And yet, notwithstanding all his troubles, did he win from us a sympathetic sigh or even the fraction of a tear, except tears of laughter? All his troubles seemed funny to us. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... this odious epistle, and became aware that Tipsipoozie, a lean Irish terrier, was regarding him with peculiar disfavour, and shewing all his teeth, probably in fun. In pursuance of this humorous idea, he then darted towards Georgie, and would have been extremely funny, if he had not been handicapped by the bag of golf-clubs to which he was tethered. As it was, he pursued him down the platform, towing the clubs after him, till he got entangled in them ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... "Was it funny?" she asked. "I didn't know. I know that a cook cooked things, and a baker baked things, so I thought maybe a steward ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the mud cussin' all blue about his 'blarsted cap'; and t'other fellow wi' the cap on his head and pretending to hunt for it, and callin' the rest to come help. I dessay I'll laugh some myself, if I remember it when I'm safe back about ten mile from here. Just at the moment my funny bone hasn't got goin' right after me expectin' to see that feller blowed to ribbons an' remnants. But them others—say, I've seen men sittin' comfortable in an armchair seat at a roof-garden vaudeville that couldn't raise as hearty a laugh ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... In one of the rooms we found some peculiar high caps which had belonged to the soldiers. My father took one and amused the children much when he went under Minnehaha Falls by leaving his own hat and wearing that funny cap. ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... of the observer changes from happiness to unhappiness, and the comic becomes the pathetic. A fall on the ice which seemed to offer only a ludicrous contrast between the dignity and grace of the man erect and the ungainly attitude of the falling figure ceases utterly to be funny when it is seen to entail some physical injury; and wit which burns and sears is not amusing to its victim."[12] The ability to appreciate the humorous in life is a great gift and should be cultivated to a much greater extent than it is ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... quite likely be frequently sought, said: "Why, certainly play with Harold in the open, but whenever he suggests secrecy—" she did not have time to finish the sentence, the boy said: "I am wise; whenever he gets to doing that 'funny business' I'll skiddoo." The confidence between that mother and son, to my mind, was wonderfully sublime—all the while practical and helpful in ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... was staring at him. Suddenly her stare was transformed to a soft smile. "Oh-h—sometimes these cabbies think they're funny." ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... sense" as Mason suggests. Meredith is a little too deep or too subtle for Strauss—unless it be granted that cynicism is more a part of comedy than a part of refined-insult. Let us also remember that Mr. Disston, not Mr. Strauss, put the funny notes in the bassoon. A symphony written only to amuse and entertain is likely to amuse only the writer—and him not long ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... she had slept for seventeen years—almost her lifetime. A hundred vivid scenes of her childhood came back, and familiar objects oddly intruded themselves; the red and green lambrequin on the parlour mantel—a present many years ago from Cousin Eleanor; the what-not, with its funny curly legs, and the bare spot near the lock on the door of the cake closet ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the major, still sniffing. "Funny thing for lightning to do, though. Sort of a dirty trick, ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... dreaded starvation. They grew angry with Columbus, and threatened to take his life if he did not command the ships to be turned back toward Spain, but his patience did not give out, nor was his faith one whit the less. He cheered the hearts of the men as best he could, often telling them droll, funny stories to distract their thoughts from the terrible dread which ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Hale about sending underwear to the heathen. She once asked Donald Ogden Stewart to dinner with her niece; she didn't think his story about the lady mind reader who read the man's mind and then slapped his face, was very funny; ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... a gentle voice from the bedroom door, "don't mind; it's foolish in me I dare say, and—and the tableaux were real funny," and an odd attempt at a laugh ended ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... up by promenading to some pretty good music, was succeeded by a funny farce, which sent the ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... with it, was a tattered rag of an ear, which was forever unfurling itself, like an old flag; and then that bud of a tail, about one inch long, if it could in any sense be said to be long, being as broad as long—the mobility, the instantaneousness of that bud were very funny and surprising, and its expressive twinklings and winkings, the intercommunications between the eye, the ear, and it, were of ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Hare?" she asked. "Your face is long—so!" She drew her own mouth down at the corners and made herself look so funny that Timid Hare, sad as she ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade
... "Funny how that name makes a man unpopular, ain't it?" he said, addressing the minister. "But I ain't going to talk books in Kilo. The landlord down at the hotel told me it was a bad time, so I'm going to pass it by. Well, I guess we deserve all the blame we get. Some of us do pester the life out of ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... said cosily. "Cora wants to keep this Corliss in a corner of the porch where she can coo at him; so you and mother'll have to raise a ballyhoo for Dick Lindley and that Wade Trumble. It'd been funny if Dick hadn't noticed anybody was there and kissed her. What on earth does he want to stay engaged to ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... Frohman was ill at the Knickerbocker Hotel. He was very much interested in this little play, so the rehearsals were held in his rooms at the hotel. There were only three people in the cast—Miss Barrymore, her brother John, and Hattie Williams. It was so excruciatingly funny that Frohman would often call up ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... like Shadrach, past the fiery furnace and not even scorched. It's a queer place—New York—full of queer people, living on shelves, like the preserves in a pantry. Great though! I'm getting to understand 'em a little, though they don't understand me. I suppose I'm queer to them. Funny, isn't it? 'Old fashioned,' a fellow called me the other day. I didn't know whether to hit him or take him by the hand. I think he meant it as a compliment. I had been polite, that's all. Most people don't understand ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... tell you something about a little girl who was always saying and doing funny things, and very ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... literally a gentle-man. I never heard him utter a hasty, angry, fault-finding word. His voice was uniformly pitched at a rather low tone, perfectly even, although lances of his eyes and slight intonations of his voice often indicated that something funny or mildly sarcastic was coming, but upon the whole he was serious and industrious, and, however deep and fun-provoking a story might be, he never indulged in ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... flute, Mrs. Austen continued: "To-morrow is Sunday, is it not? You must be sure to come. Dear me! I can remember when everybody went to church on Sunday and then walked up and down Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue had trees then instead of shops and on the trees were such funny little worms. They used to hang down and crawl on you. The houses, too, were so nice. They all had piazzas and on the piazzas were honeysuckles. But I fear I am boasting. I don't really remember all that. It was my ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... to the kitchen, bringing along some of the best room chairs, Elmira coming too, and me tagging along behind. And the first thing they noticed was them flatirons on top of the cistern door. Mis' Primrose, she says that looks funny. But another woman speaks up and says Danny must of been playing with them while Elmira was over town. She says, "Was you ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... he doing to stem the joy tide?" I asked with a laugh, for it did seem in a way funny to see one of the leading citizens of old Goodloets so distressed over its improvement and modernization ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hills," said the Sirdar: "I'll tell you the story of a reply of mine, a funny reply. I ordered a general last winter to march across those hills. He said that the troops would starve. I looked him in the eye. Then you will eat ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... by two things in Brother Powell—his radiant joyousness and his delightful humor, and the ease with which he could make the transition from the telling of a funny story to the uttering of a devout prayer, thus leading others with him up to the very steps of the ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... Gill, as a twinge of pain made him howl anew. "It was you who got me sick smoking cigarettes and thought it was funny. Yes, and it was you, too," blabbed the mean-spirited traitor, "who put those brads in Bob Upton's shoes, so ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... a cheery place. It doesn't look like a doctor's office. There are dingy haircloth sofas, it is true, and a row of shelves with bottles, and funny-looking boxes on the mantel—one an electric battery—and rows and rows of books on the walls. But there are no dreadful instruments about. If there are, you ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... funny about him." He all but whispered it. "Something funny that we couldn't understand. We couldn't understand why he should want so much to die. The reason why we couldn't understand ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... something, the Bobbsey family set off across, the fields toward the distant trolley line that would take them nearly home. The moon was well up now, and there was a good path across the fields. Nan and Bert were talking about the wreck, and recalling some of the funny incidents of catching the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... themselves that they had what they were pleased to call a "cinch"; they alluded to the Palatines as "easy fruit," and began to make a number of fresh and grand-stand plays. The inevitable and proper result of this funny business was that they began to grow careless. The deaf-mutes, unusually alert in other ways on account of the loss of hearing and speech, were quick to see the opportunity, and to play ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... clear. I will consult the missionaries at least - I place some reliance in M. also - or I should if he were not a partisan; but a partisan he is. There's the pity. To sleep! A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the fed brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of politics! 'Tis funny - 'tis sad. Nobody but these cursed idiots could have so driven me; I ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Kaiser was not there: and with prone outlook he went seeking an assistant superintendent; but, sighting a fellow-operator, come, as usual, to digest the world, from barometer-reports to coffee-quotations at Rio, Charles P. Stickney cried to him: "Funny about the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... their various sounds that seemed to tell in each of a self-contained world, where every item of life was summarized on board. Men chatting, women laughing, dogs barking, cocks crowing, and pigs squealing, a floating farmyard, such is life on the sea. For the Rob Roy I had tried to get a monkey as a funny friend, if not as a tractable midshipman, but an end was put to the idea by the solemn warning of an experienced comrade, who stated, that after the first two days, a monkey pursues steadily one line of conduct afloat—he throws everything into ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... working out to the queen's taste! When you get a chance, look over your left shoulder. Gee! but this is funny! All the same, though, I expect I'll get myself into a very devil of a stew. When that reporter discovers that I've given him an out-and-out fake, he'll go gunning for me as sure as you ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... and days of weary travel we have at last got to our army home! As you know, Fort Lyon is fifty miles from Kit Carson, and we came all that distance in a funny looking stage coach called a "jerkey," and a good name for it, too, for at times it seesawed back and forth and then sideways, in an awful breakneck way. The day was glorious, and the atmosphere so clear, we could see miles and miles ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... three-quarters of a mile of water covered with creamy foam, and she did not know but what she might be taken out of her depth. Yet she determined to risk it, and plunged in at a run. The sand was hard under foot, but, as she said, when the piled foam came softly up to her waist she "felt gey funny." Half-way across she stumbled into a hole caused by a swirling eddy, and she thought all was over; but her nerve never failed her, and she struggled till she got a footing again. When she reached the hard ground she was wet to ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... "Funny game, the whole thing!" sighed Greg, rising. He had drawn off one of his white lisle-thread gloves, but now he was engaged in ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... "Injurieux ami," which shocked her so much, was in apposition, etc. etc. What I said, however, had so little effect towards clearing her head that she was seized with a severe and prolonged fit of sneezing. Meanwhile it was evident that the history of "Prince Grenouille" had proved extremely funny; for it was all that Jeanne could do, as she crouched down there on the carpet, to keep herself from bursting into a wild fit of laughter. But when she had finished with the prince and princess of the story, and the multitude of their children, she assumed a very suppliant expression, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Day dinner was a memorable one at Tolchaco. Everyone was in fine spirits. Clifford kept everyone in a roar with his remarks. Bauer surprised the company by telling two funny stories from the Fliegende Blaetter. Clifford's sister laughed so hard she almost choked on a bone. Mr. and Mrs. Masters grew unusually witty. And Lucy Gray, while not in any way distinguished for any brilliant remarks, glowed with a quiet happiness all through the meal and looked so attractive ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... being black. It was an entirely new variety—a red cat. It sat and looked at me for a long time. Disgust, just plain, every-day disgust, was written all over that animal's face. I don't know what would have happened had I not laughed. I simply could not help it, the sight was so funny. With my first shout the cat seemed to "come to" and, with a terrified yowl, sped through a narrow opening and took ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... and tedious strain. Margaret's lip curled as she listened. What did this fakir know about manhood and womanhood? And could there be any more pitiful, more paltry wasting of time than in studying out and performing such insincerities as his life was made up of? True, Mrs. Houghton, of those funny, fashionable New Yorkers who act as if they had only just arrived at the estate of servants and carriages, and are always trying to impress even passing strangers with their money and their grandeur—true, Mrs. Houghton was most provocative to anger or amused disdain at the fashionable life. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... stature with a critical eye. "She's only about half as tall as you. How funny you'll look together!" With sudden soberness and sweetness, "But, seriously, David, I'm proud of your courage in taking a girl for herself regardless of her surroundings. So few men would be willing to face the ridicule and the criticism, and all the social difficulties." ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... about and laughing, were continually being suppressed. He adored children, and he made friendly advances to his little neighbors when he met them on the stairs. The little girls were shy at first, but were soon on good terms with Christophe, who always had some funny story to tell them or sweetmeats in his pockets: they told their parents about him: and, though at first they had been inclined to look askance at his advances, they were won over by the frank open manners of their noisy ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... It is a funny thing, this hanging of a man. I have never seen a hanging, but I have been told by eye-witnesses the details of a dozen hangings so that I know what will happen to me. Standing on the trap, leg-manacled and arm-manacled, the knot against the neck, the black cap drawn, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... carried, and on the night appointed the "Irreparables" had their dinner, and up in the gallery sat the minister, the sheriff, the county clerk, the editor of the Snow-Drift, the head-teacher and a dozen other gentlemen, all in strict evening—if still Alaskian—toilettes. At first it was funny. Then it wasn't funny. It became tiresome, and the sheriff went away. His boots creaked, the ladies looked up, and then not a married man but smiled delightedly and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... 1909—"still steers our devious party courses, and the Tariff Reformers have still to capture us. Weston Massinghay was comparing them the other night, at a dinner at the Clynes', to a crowded piratical galley trying to get alongside a good seaman in rough weather. He was very funny about Leo Maxse in the poop, white and shrieking with passion and the motion, and all the capitalists armed to the teeth and hiding snug in the hold until the grappling-irons were fixed.... Why haven't you come into the game? I'd hoped it if only for ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... little town of perhaps a thousand, a banker took me up into his office after the lecture in which I had related some of the above experiences. "The audience laughed with you and thought it very funny," said he. "I couldn't laugh. It was too pathetic. It was a picture of what is going on in our own little community year after year. I wish you could see what I have to see. I wish you could see the ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... ill, I am afraid. She found the heat and noise too much for her. Half an hour ago she asked Captain Stump to take her to the yacht. Of course I told her I didn't mind being left here until some one came. But the funny part of it is that, although I was looking from the veranda, I failed to see either her or the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the funny part uv it," said Pete; "they never mentioned the mountains. You don't suppose there's any other way they could get 'em over the border, ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... it up, an' I went with her, an' we took 'em to a tailor, an' she told him to make 'em bigger, for a surprise for papa, 'cause then they'll fit him again, Mr. Parcher. She said he must make 'em a whole lot bigger. She said he must let 'em way, WAY out! So I guess Willie would look too funny in 'em after they're fixed; an' anyway, Mr. Parcher, the secret won't be home from the tailor's for two weeks, an' maybe by that ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... much alone here," said she, "to know anything of such matters, but we will go if you will promise to tell us one of your funny stories. They say you have written a whole book full of them; how I should like to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... red coals lay three little dried fishes such as are sold at three for two cuartos. Her chin rested in the palm of her hand while she gazed at the weak yellow glow peculiar to the cane, which burns rapidly and leaves embers that quickly grow pale. A sad smile lighted up her face as she recalled a funny riddle about the pot and the fire which Crispin had once propounded to her. The boy said: "The black man sat down and the red man looked at him, a moment passed, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... be done," said Nick in a funny, sober way; "a scout is supposed to have his sleep, that's the most important rule of all, you said so yourself. I can't sleep till I've had a squint at that cup. Come on Fido, let's ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... used for fuel and at times by funny men to be put into sweetmeats by way of practical joke: these are called "Nukl-i-Pishkil"goat-dung bonbons. The tale will remind old Anglo-Indians of the two Bengal officers who were great at such "sells" and who "swopped" a spavined horse for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... did you? Only thing, though. I'll show you all right if you'll let me ride your donkey. Funny, ain't she? Make ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Collie. "The other day he told me to keep my eye on one of the boys. Silent Saunders, he's called. Kind of funny. I don't know ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the best little auntie in the world, and exactly the right size to play with them and tell them stories. Sometimes she told them interesting stories about George Washington, and other great and good men; sometimes funny stories, about Frizzlefits and Monsieur Pop, and sometimes she would make them nearly die laughing with stories about ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... splendor in the Grand Entry, Bud Perkins left earth and walked upon clouds of glory. His high-strung nerves quivered with delight as the ring disclosed its treasures—Willie Sells on his spotted ponies, James Robinson on his dapple gray, the "8 funny clowns—count them 8," the Japanese jugglers and tumblers, the bespangled women on the rings, the dancing ponies, and the performing dogs. The climax of his joy came when Zazell, "the queen of the air," was shot from her cannon to the trapeze. ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... hole I'd made and stood up straight. Just then I saw another man crawl up about ten feet away and reach out and skin a banana and stuff it into his mouth. 'Twas a dirty man, black-faced and ragged and disgraceful of aspect. Yes, the man was a ringer for the pictures of the fat Weary Willie in the funny papers. I looked again, and saw it was my general man—De Vega, the great revolutionist, mule-rider and pickaxe importer. When he saw me the general hesitated with his mouth filled with banana and his eyes the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... you've done some funny stunts," continued Alvord. "You've fired old Stevens, and you've been going over your books with this man Blodgett, and talking of ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... an outlaw—only funny, you know, an' most awfull' hungry. Are all outlaws always so ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... must, Jeff. You've no idea what a sweet girl she has become. I am quite charmed with her—so modest, and unselfish, and clever, and good, and—and, in short, I call her the four F's, for she is fair, fragile, fervent, and funny." ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... her husband laughed so that I found myself unable to go on for some moments, till Mrs. Makely, with a final shriek, shouted to him: "Dick, do stop, or I shall die! Excuse me, Mr. Homos, but you are so deliciously funny, and I know you're just joking. You won't mind ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... that is produced in the living being by contending with the passive resistance of inert matter. And there is something provoking even in the outward signs that the mind is in a non-receptive state. You remember the eye that is looking beyond you,—the grin that is not at anything funny in what you say,—the occasional inarticulate sounds that are put in at the close of your sentences, as if to delude you with a show of attention. The non-receptive mind is occasionally found in clever men; but the men who exhibit it are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Milly?" John demanded, starting up and coming to her. "What in the world makes you act so funny? Are you sick? Why ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... funny place. The floor was of stone. There was one table, with cups on it for coffee, and plates, and bread and butter. The loaves of bread were shaped like a man's arm—about as big round, and a good deal longer. The coffee was ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... They gathered about her, prying and bobbing and jostling and chirping, staring at her like a lot of bumpkins when she leaped into the half-finished cup and molded her building material with her ruddy bosom. They seemed to be saying jeeringly: "Isn't that a funny way for a bird to build a house? Hay! hay! hay!" The robin forsook her nest; and the sparrows borrowed her timbers for their own nest, and forgot to bring them ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Lucky. That's a funny name, isn't it? It was very naughty of him to run away with your stick. I must punish him by not ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... how you are funny to-night! You want to make a laugh at me, is it not? All right; wait till to-morrow; I then shall make a laugh at you. It is I that shall be funny then," returned Ralli with the evil smile broadening on his face and his eyes beginning to sparkle ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... another note from Agatha, about sugar-cards this time, but with a postscript which said, "It isn't like you to chaff me, James. I don't see that there is anything particularly funny about George having got the Vacuum Cleaner which he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... the girl, watching the peaches with anxious eye as Van Emmon helped himself. "Funny; but I always understood that the first function of man was to father the race; yet, invariably the young fellows try to make names for themselves ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... brought it opposite to my post of observation. Here it halted as though it seemed to see me. At any rate it sat up in the alert fashion that hares have, its forepaws hanging absurdly in front of it, with one ear, on which there was a grey blotch, cocked and one dragging, and sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then it began to talk to me. I do not mean that it really talked, but the thoughts which were in its mind were flashed on to my mind so that I understood perfectly, yes, and could answer them in the same fashion. It said, ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... "It's funny," thought Mary, "how such a picture popped right up in front of me. Now, if Joyce had such a fancy she'd do something with it. It would suggest a title design or a tail piece of some kind. Oh, why wasn't I born with a talent for writing! ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... man's a born hunter. Rao will have tigers eating out of your hand. He's a marvel; saved my hide more than once. Funny thing; you can't show 'em that you're grateful. Lose caste if you do. I rather miss it. Get the East in your blood and you'll never get it out. Fascinating! But my liver turned over once too many times. Ha! Some one coming ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... highest-salaried actors you could hand me. Do you know what made that picture such a scream? It was because there wasn't a bit of made-to-order comedy business in the whole film. Those boys didn't think about acting funny just to make folks laugh. They were so doggoned busy having fun with the story and showing up its weak points that they forgot to be self-conscious. If I'd had a regular comedy company working on it, believe me, Mr. Brown, it might have turned out almost as rotten a farce as it would be ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... Shop there were rows and rows of dolls, and swarms and swarms of little girls looking at them. Take saw a roly-poly baby doll, with a funny tuft of black hair on his head. "This is the one I want, if you please," she said to the shopkeeper. She gave him her money. He gave ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... got caught at his funny work," suggested Shelley, hitting the nail directly on the head, as the ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... parson, he twisted and wriggled himself out of his coat, that he filled, a little too snugly for an easy exit. "Thinking of me, and among all these books too—Bibles, catechisms, tracts, theologies, sermons. Well, well, that is funny. What made you ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... a shrewd, clean-shaven face, and the deportment of an archbishop. The Head of the House took the paper, and began to call over the names. Each boy, as his name was called, said, "Here," or, if he wished to be funny, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... funny to watch them. They never salute an officer or stand at attention; they talk and crack jokes round them, and when ready, say, 'Let's be going.' This, mind, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... a funny mess!" he chuckled. "Here am I, able and willing to talk—and there you are, as dumb as a mummy, and looking for all the world as if you'd seen a ghost! What's the matter? Aren't you glad we're not going ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... said Mrs. Peyton. "Tell her it is almost a consolation for lying here, to think I need not see her. Tell her anything you like. Go now! Good-bye, child! Dear little quaint, funny, prim child, good-bye!" ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... Me trespassing—funny, very funny!" He indulged in a hoarse wheezy laugh and broke suddenly into a torrent of the foulest language that this hardened ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... on Jack and looked around for my clothes. Funny, they weren't laid out on the bed as usual. It wasn't a bit like Rob O to be careless, either. He had always been an ideal valet, the best household ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf
... Jaune's studio with a newspaper in his hand. "So you are the Marquis who has been setting the town wild for the last week, eh? And whom did you bet with? And what started you in such a crazy performance, anyway? Tell me all about it. It's as funny—Good heavens! d'Antimoine, what's the matter? Are you ill?" For Jaune had grown deathly pale ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... anythin' more than one o' them snippy things ye see in the papers, drored out to no end by you. It's only one o' them funny paragraphs ye kin read in a minit in the papers that takes ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... looked at the funny figure riding beside him, for the lawyer was very small, and had a crooked back, and rolled up in the old cloak he looked like ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... off the car, he bundled into a tent, followed by a few of his friends, where they remained for about five minutes, at the end of which he came out in full racing costume —blue and yellow striped jacket, blue cap and leathers—looking as funny a figure as ever you set eyes upon. I now thought it time to throw off my white surtout, and show out in pink and orange, the colours I had been winning in for two months past. While some of the party were sent on to station themselves ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... have done with Your abuse and let the Farce go on; It was funny enough at First, but you ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... Julien," she protested, "you didn't know where to look for it. Why does this funny little man with the mutton-chop whiskers hover around our ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of sandpaper for your boys' manners!" Evadna choked over a little sob of self-pity. "I can just tell you one thing, Aunt Phoebe, that fellow you call Grant ought to be smoothed with one of those funny axes they hew ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower |
