"Good story" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went, among the Chippewas, the Crees, or the Assiniboines, some one was sure to speak of the Mandans, and the stories grew more and more marvellous. La Verendrye knew that Indians were very much inclined to exaggerate. They would never spoil a good story by limiting it to what they knew to be true. They liked a joke as well as other people; and, when they found that the white men who visited them were eager to know all about the country and the tribes of the far ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... read with great interest and profit by almost any one, while those who have read The Tempest as we have recommended, should find some measure of enjoyment in all. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a charming fairy story; The Merchant of Venice is a good story, contains fine characters and shows some of Shakespeare's most beautiful thoughts, although some people are inclined to believe he has dealt too severely with the Jew. Much Ado About Nothing is a jolly comedy to match with The Comedy of Errors. Julius Caesar, Richard III and Coriolanus ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... now I'm going to write a story about a prince who finds the treasure and wins the princess. He's looked for her all over the world and she wasn't there, and now there's only himself left, and there he finds her, for he's taken her heart. Won't that be a good story?" ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... reason why you should always be sure that a story you repeat is a good story. Then you will be glad to have it travel on and on and on, and will never want to call it back. But if you tell a story that isn't true or nice, the time is almost sure to come when you will want to call it back and cannot. ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... volume which will appeal to boys who want a good story that will give some information as well."—New York ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... to five in the afternoon Wahaska, figuratively speaking, held its breath. At half-past three, young Dahlgren, of the Daily Wahaskan, spoiled a good story for his own paper by spreading the report that most of the men had sullenly drawn their pay, but as yet not a man of them had signed on for further employment. At four o'clock the Daily Wahaskan's windows bore a bulletin to the effect that a mass indignation meeting was in ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... opinion," he continued, "it was a very good story. Of course, it goes without saying that it is true. I tell you, sir, that it is my judgment that this whole section of coast line is rich in gold. Not only did those pirates bury gold here, but, during the Civil War, the Confederate blockade runners, when fearing ...
— Money Island • Andrew Jackson Howell, Jr.
... father doesn't think him good enough to live in. It's grand; but this part here isn't the whole of it. There's a door somewhere which nobody never opens unless it's the jedge there. I'd like to see what's behind that 'ere door. If it's somethin' to make a good story out of, I might be got to keep quiet about this other thing. I don't ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... reported to me in person before Atlanta, on the 28d of July, stated his entire loss to have been only twelve killed and thirty wounded. He brought in four hundred captured mules and three hundred horses, and also told me a good story. He said he was far down in Alabama, below Talladega, one hot, dusty day, when the blue clothing of his men was gray with dust; he had halted his column along a road, and he in person, with his staff, had gone to the house of a planter, who met him kindly on the front-porch. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a very good story the other day on the steamer going to Bermuda"—then he pauses with a certain doubt in his face—"but perhaps you've ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... especially if the narrator thereof observes a lack of interest on the part of his listeners. Then the temptation to arouse them to attention becomes almost irresistible and unconsciously one accepts the maxim at which we all sneer,—that it is folly to let the truth spoil a good story. Every day we have occasion to hold our heads, reeling to aching with conflicting accounts of some one incident, and repeat the question asked ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... is because they never saw the simple Karl that I knew and loved, but only Marx, the great leader and teacher, with a thousand heavy problems burdening his mind. But the Marx that I knew—my friend Karl—was human, boy, very human. He could sing a song, tell a good story, and enjoy a joke, even ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... knows a good story," said Charley Hawker, "about Bougong Jack. Do tell it to us, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... a jolly good fellow,—just the man to sit on the box seat and drive the three horses through ruts and "thank-you-ma'ams," slush and mud and snow. There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, his ruddy cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, and he had a good story forever on the tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two in his stockings (his mother used to say she had the longest Life of any woman in the State o' Maine); his shoulders were broad in proportion, and his lungs just the sort to fill amply his ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... blowers, thumpers on the pianoforte, &c. These individuals can think of nothing else but their favourite pursuit, and imagine all the world to be equally interested in it. Take a musician off music, and he is the most ignorant of animals. A good story in illustration of this is told about Madame Catalani. Being at a large party in Vienna, where Goethe was present, she was much surprised at the great respect with which that illustrious man was treated. On inquiring his name, she was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... Sir Charles Cotterell says, when they are to have an audience they never venture to put on their clothes till he appears to come to fetch them; and, as soon as ever they come home, put them off again. I to Sir G. Carteret's to dinner; where Mr. Cofferer Ashburnham; who told a good story of a prisoner's being condemned at Salisbury for a small matter. While he was on the bench with his father-in-law, judge Richardson, and while they were considering to transport him to save his life, the fellow flung a great stone at the judge, that missed him, but broke through the wainscoat. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... He lived with his grandfather, and knew his ways. Jenny came on visits only, and was not well enough acquainted with the old gentleman to know that he would soon tire of the old joke, and reward patient children by a good story. ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... said he knew an awfully good story, but it was rather risky, you know. I pricked up my ears. Did we know the story—story about a fellah—fellah who had an aunt, you know? And fellah's aunt was most frightfully keen on dogs and all that, you know.... After three minutes of it I lost interest in the story. It concerned Old George ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... exclaimed. "At home the dogs be tied and the stones be loose. Here the dogs be loose and the stones be tied." Now, if that man had enjoyed a school excursion to the town when a boy, he would have deprived me of a good story. A glimpse of the town in youth might also do good in checking the perpetual urban immigration, which, alas! removes so many of the rustic population from the soil, and places them under it. To this end all school excursions to London ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... that he stole the bunch of cattle he first drove into the Falling Wall. It was not true but it made a good story. And in any event, Texas Laramie defended his steers vigorously against all men advancing claim to them between darkness and daylight—as enterprising neighbors not infrequently undertook to do. With the cattle, Laramie had brought into ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... the merits of his talk, as it is of his character, is its conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and his affections are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man of whom ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... interest, and told their tales with unfailing exaggeration. The boatswain was especially attractive, owing to his rugged personality and his unaffected manner. His sanguinary tales of American packet-ship life were much canvassed for, and being a good story-teller, he embellished them with incidents that gave them a fine finishing touch. He was asked by some young ladies if he ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Another good story is told of St. Boniface. When he was a child, he observed a fox running away with a hen belonging to his mother. He hastened to the church, and prayed that the hens and chickens, which his mother fed in her back-yard to maintain herself and little family, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Lord Tony wanted to hear all about the adventure of this afternoon. A thorough sportsman, he loved a good story of hairbreadth escapes, of dangers cleverly ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... way, Mr. Field, but the part of mercy is a conspiracy of silence. Let it be known that an escaped lunatic did the killing—a certain unknown Mrs. Welles—and let Brencherly give the reporters all they want. For them it's a good story, anyway—such facts as these, for instance: he happened by in time to see an attack upon another woman on a bench opposite Mahr's house, and to hear her boast of her acts. But I ask as a personal favor that the scandal be avoided. Brencherly, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... is extremely well written. It is condensed, vivid, picturesque.... A rattling good story, and unrivaled in fiction for its presentation of the American feeling toward England during ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... however, depended largely upon the person who explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell the good story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well, and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the other hand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures, the impatient river-town audience did not hesitate ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a pompous manner of his new office, and particularly of the concerns of the brewery, which it was at last resolved should be sold[283]. Lord Lucan[284] tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly characteristic: that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in his button-hole, like ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... ceremony he was not a men with whom liberties could be taken. There was but one person in Illinois outside of his own household who ventured to address him by his first name. There was no one in Washington who ever attempted it. Appreciating wit and humor, he relished a good story, especially if it illustrated a truth or strengthened an argument, and he had a vast fund of illustrative anecdote which he used with the happiest effect. But the long list of vulgar, salacious stories attributed ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in one of Chambers' publications, tells a good story, and it is a true one, of Pere Fabrice, who amassed a fortune in Paris. The story ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... Aquarium—jostled one another on the wide staircase and in the gravely ornate drawing-rooms. And amid the motley crowd the genial host was omnipresent, with a warm greeting and a twinkling smile for each successive guest—a good story, a happy quotation, the last morsel of piquant gossip, the newest theory of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... so far as moral intent was concerned, but in his earlier autobiographical writings—and most of his earlier writings were autobiographical—he made no real pretense to accuracy of time, place, or circumstance—seeking, as he said, "only to tell a good story"—while in later years an ever-vivid imagination and a capricious memory made history difficult, even when, as in his so-called "Autobiography," his effort was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... telling me a good story on Webb last week," said Diggs, as he waited for his dessert. "It was about the time he seconded the nomination of Reed for ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark which may hereafter prove of value to some among you.—When one of us who has been led by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or herself possessed of talent arrives at the full ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand. Only, in writing, there is ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... Kenmore, impatiently pushing aside a long leader on native politics and regarding me thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not superstitious, but a honeymoon spent trying to break into Davy Jones's locker for sunken treasure—I guess that's a good story, isn't it?" ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... second evening becomes his biography in the mouths of the Norns on the fourth. The little that the Norns add to it is repeated an hour later by Valtrauta. How far all this repetition is tolerable is a matter of individual taste. A good story will bear repetition; and if it has woven into it such pretty tunes as the Rhine maidens' yodel, Mimmy's tinkling anvil beat, the note of the forest bird, the call of Siegfried's horn, and so on, it will bear a good deal of rehearing. Those who have but newly ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... cutting jokes, and the Queen has written of his abiding cheerfulness. People are apt to forget in their very admiration of his noble thoughtfulness, earnestness, and tenderness of heart that he was also full of fun, keenly relishing a good story, the life of the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... not appeared a second time—that certainly was a comfort; and what, after all, did I care for him, and his queer old toggery and strange looks? Not a fig! I was nothing the worse for having seen him, and a good story the better. So I tumbled into bed, put out my candle, and, cheered by a loud drunken quarrel in the back lane, went ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... times she seemed about to speak to him, but apparently hesitated to do so, for the man took no notice of his fellow-passengers. At length, however, she mustered up courage to address him, and said: "There is a good story in this magazine: perhaps you would like ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... can't help it," sighed good-natured Len. "It's a story we've got to have to-morrow morning. I'd lose my position if I didn't write a good story about this afternoon's work. And, now that I've got a wife and baby to feed, I can't afford to waste any ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... for an artist, so remarkably striking were his ordinary attitudes. Andrew Gemmells had little of the cant of his calling; his wants were food and shelter, or a trifle of money, which he always claimed, and seemed to receive as his due. He, sung a good song, told a good story, and could crack a severe jest with all the acumen of Shakespeare's jesters, though without using, like them, the cloak of insanity. It was some fear of Andrew's satire, as much as a feeling of kindness or charity, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... we long for the buffalo. There is a great deal of land leased by cattle men in Montana, and the money ought to go to buy more cattle for the Indian, and clothes for our children. I like to tell the truth just as I have seen it with my own eyes, and I will have another good story for you to-morrow night. I am getting old, but when I begin to talk about the old times I think I am young again, and that I am the ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... burlesque of Rudyard Kipling, which was meant to please but which bored me. Then the "Raegen" story came in, making nine pages of the Scribner's, which at ten dollars a page ought to be $90. Pretty good pay for three weeks' work, and it is a good story. Then at twelve a young man came bustling into the office, stuck his card down on the desk and said, "I am S. S. McClure. I have sent my London representative to Berlin and my New York man to London. Will you take charge of ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... prude. On two occasions, Plonny had been vindicated before the grand jury by the narrow margin of one vote. Yet he was much liked as a human sinner who had no pretenses about him, and who told a good story surpassingly well. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... pronounced him to be "a very good fellow." He was Irish by his mother's side, Scotch by his father's, but much more Irish than Scotch by predilection, and it was his mother tongue he spoke, exaggerating the accent slightly to heighten the effect of a tender speech or a good story. With the latter he kept Mr. Frayling well entertained, and Evadne he plied with the former ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... canvas is filled in with other characters as finely drawn. The story grips the reader. Lovers of good literature and of a good story will delight ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... With them tucked akimbo, he could take up two of the heaviest men in the ship, and run along the deck with them as lightly as he would have done with a couple of young children. He had a generous, kind heart, could tell a good story, and troll forth a ditty with any man; and as to his bravery, where all were brave, I need scarcely mention it, except to say that I do no not think anyone beat him at that. Boatswain's mate though he was, ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... true to me as steel, I knew. He could not have whispered,—nor Barry; but that Jane, Barry's wife. O woman! woman! what newsmongers they are! Here were Julia and I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane Barry might have a good story to tell. What right had Barry to a wife? Not four years out of college, and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I had been fool enough to trust even him with the particulars of my all-important secret! But here I was again interrupted, coffee-cup still ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... is literally true; and David Wilson, the author need not tell his brethren of the Roxburghe and Bannatyne Clubs, was a real personage." Mr. Blades, whose iconoclastic temper is not moved to mercy even by this good story, says that although it "looks like a true bibliographical anecdote," its appearance is deceptive, and that "not a single statement ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... are very numerous. Some of them have been handed down through many generations; some are of recent origin; while a few are borrowed from other tribes. Some old men acquire great reputation as story tellers, and are invited to houses, and feasted, by those who are desirous of listening to them. Good story tellers often originate tales, and do not disclaim the authorship. When people of different tribes meet they often exchange tales with one another. An old Indian will occupy several hours in telling ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... not endure the sight of suffering, and delighted in giving pleasure; his sympathy was ready and entire, his loyalty of the truest metal. "He never abused anybody," says his brother, "nor sacrificed an absent person for the sake of a good story." He loved animals and children, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... absorbing story."—New York Times. "Intensely thrilling; in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a love affair of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on the bank which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner of exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Another very good story is told of this extraordinary old lady by H. Noel Williams. It appears she persisted after the fall of the Empire in using the Imperial arms on ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... its size. And in you, as an American, my faith is unbounded. You see, I feel convinced that it all depends on you!" Then, under the impulsion of her enthusiasm she clapped her hands together as she exclaimed: "Oh, I am sure you will clear the prince! And then, like the hero in all good story books, win the reward." ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Glory dis very mornin'. I knows I'se goin' to miss old Randal Clayton 'cause both of us warn't no good but for to set and talk 'bout old times." Tears rolled down his face as he told of his friend, and the visitor, fearful that he was too much overcome by grief to be able to give a good story, suggested that another engagement be made to record his reminiscences, but he objected. "Lawsy, Missy!" he protested. "Please don't go now, for dem old times is on my mind today and I would so love to talk 'bout 'em now, if you don't mind. If I talks ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Penobscot woman, a widow of a former governor, whom I met at North Conway, in the White Mountains, N. H. In her dialect Glooskap is invariably called Glus-gah-be. She told it with that admirable dry drollery, characteristic of a good story-teller in a race where there are no bad ones. The exquisite humor and humanity of this little legend, placed as a pendant to the stupendous successes of the giant hero, are such as to entitle its Indian author ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Mr. Oxenham's usual spirited and vivid style. Those who relish a good story well told will welcome 'Giant Circumstance,' and will set it on a level with the best of Mr. Oxenham's ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... good story, illustrative of his enthusiasm when looking at a crater in the moon. He says the night was remarkably fine, and he applied higher and higher powers to his glass until he seemed to look down into the abyss, and imagining himself standing ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... of granite on his road to Mecklenburgh, which he says actually seem to have been rained there; in which belief he is strengthened by a story in a Philadelphia newspaper, of "a spitting of stones, which ended in a regular shower at Nashville, in May, 1825!"—There is seldom a good story without its match. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... shots that hit the target did so by accident." {92} But as empty hallucinations are more likely to be forgotten than those which coincide with a death; as exaggeration creeps in, as the collectors of evidence are naturally inclined to select and question people whom they know to have a good story to tell, the evidence connecting apparitions, voices, and so on with deaths is not likely to ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... miserable figures bouncing upon the rear seat before Gray said: "I fear you are a selfish pair of rascals. Have you no concern regarding the fate of the third member of your treasure-hunting trio?" Evidently they had none. "Too bad! It's a good story." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... "That's a good story," admitted Ruth, "but try to think up some way of finding poor little Amy, ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... the centuries, the more easy and enticing do you find that classic. Hence you are glad that George Eliot, the Brontes, Thackeray, are considered as classics, because you really do enjoy them. Your sentiments concerning them approach your sentiments concerning a "rattling good story" in a magazine. ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... "This is a good story for young children, bringing in the same characters as 'Little Miss Weezy' of last year, and continuing the history of a very natural and wide-awake family of children. The doings and the various 'scrapes' of Kirke, the brother, form a prominent feature ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... congratulate you on the good story you wrote in Everybody's Magazine this month. It is the beat story I ever read and the best I ever ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... skilful performer on the Irish harp, a poetess and a genius, called by the admiring neighbors 'the Harp of the Valley.'" Their only child, the father of Lady Morgan, was a tolerable actor, of loose morals and tight purse, who could sing a good song or tell a good story, and who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... they have passed, others who exhibit as undeniably the marks of the Divine handiwork can give comparatively little account of how it took place. The test of the reality of the change is not its power of being made into a good story. In the one case, however, as in the other, a conscientious man will give all diligence to make his calling and election sure. Excellent chapters on the subject will be found in Spurgeon's Lectures to My Students and Blaikie's For the ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... irregular line of white billowings. The enemy were waving handkerchiefs and strips of material in token of surrender! Whereupon our infantry were signalled to take possession, which they did. Don't shrug your shoulders, friend the reader, and say: "Quite a good story, but tall, very tall." The facts were related in the R.F.C. section of 'Comic Cuts,' otherwise G.H.Q. ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... to town with Payne on Friday, having won a little at Newmarket. He told me a good story by the way. A certain bishop in the House of Lords rose to speak, and announced that he should divide what he had to say into twelve parts, when the Duke of Wharton interrupted him, and begged he might be indulged for ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... is indispensable to perfection in the art, and that is French: curses seem useful adjuncts in any language, but curses delivered in French will get a train of dogs through or over any thing. There is a good story told which illustrates this peculiar feature in dog-training. It is said that a high dignitary of the Church was once making a winter tour through his missions in the North-west. The driver, out of deference for his freight's profession, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... we are on anecdotes of the Theatre, here is another good story, which belongs to a somewhat earlier time, but of which Mrs. Piozzi does not mention the exact date. "The Richmond Theatre at that time attracted all literary people's attention, while a Coterie of Gentlemen and Noblemen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... four-and-twenty hours. "How d'ye do, Grey? How d'ye do, Grey?" burst from a knot of unhappy fellows, who would have felt quite delighted had their newly arrived co-mate condescended to entertain them, as usual, with some capital good story fresh from ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... "Naturally you tell a good story," retorted the foreman with dry incredulity. "It's up to you to come through with an explanation of why Webb's men have just gunned three of our friends. Your story doesn't make any hit with me. I don't believe a ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... the deep-drinking, warm-hearted rascal necessary for this kind of occasion, and provides him with the inevitable situations proper to the tertium quid. The defects of The Purple Mists all arise from the fact that Miss MILLS YOUNG has been told by her friends that she tells a good story. If, next time, she thinks first of her characters and then chronicles their logical development, instead of forcing them into a threadbare plot, she will give us the fine book of which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... Hay came into the office and Judge Treat said: "Hay, Weldon has just told me a good story about our old friend McDougall. Mac was in the gutter, and a policeman asked him who he was, and Mac told him, 'This morning I was Senator McDougall, but now I am ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... as you are so wont to speak ill of women, you will find it easy to tell us some good story in praise of a man. I therefore give ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... "'Tis a good story," said Mr. Carew. "Did your mother tell you that I have sent word to your Aunt Priscilla about your going to her house as soon as some trustworthy traveler going to Ticonderoga ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... mountain-side dramas as in several other books by this author, and the rowing episodes on the river are quite tame. There are no wicked local beer-house owners. But it is a good story, quietly and evenly told. Best listened to rather than read. NH. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... saved to buy back the ranch. She had stolen unwittingly the air castle which Lite had been three years building, but he did not say a word about it to Jean. Wistful eyed, but smiling with his lips, he would sit while Jean spoiled whole sheets of perfectly good story-paper, just figuring and estimating and building castles with the dollar sign. If Robert Grant Burns persisted in his mania for "feature-stuff" and "punches" in his pictures, Jean believed that she would have a fair start toward buying back the Lazy A long before her book was published and had ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... in spite of all your denials, I wager that you are in love. Ah, ah, ah. It is a good story. He keeps his countenance like a thrashed donkey. Come, drink, cheer up; honour the Lord in his benefits. Your glass is always full. Enjoy yourself, you don't entertain ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... The Merchant of Venice happens to be about usury, and its story is a medieval satire on usury. It is the fashion to say that it is a clumsy and grotesque story; but as a fact it is an exceedingly good story. It is a perfect and pointed story for its purpose, which is to convey the moral of the story. And the moral is that the logic of usury is in its nature at war with life, and might logically end in breaking into the bloody house of life. In other words, ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... related is fixed by the time-order of their occurrence, but even in a story the point gains in force if it is near the close. Because these two positions are the ones of greatest emphasis, a poor beginning or a bad ending will ruin an otherwise good story. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... of Ohio, as Secretary of the Treasury to succeed Mr. Chase, was not well received in either House. If the Members had known Tod as well as I did, they would have known that he was not only a good story teller, but a sound, able, conservative business man, fully competent to deal with the great office for which he was nominated. His declination, however, prevented a controversy which would have been injurious, whatever might have been the result. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... said suddenly. "I'm no great hand at talking. I can write pretty decently when I've a good story to tell, but I don't talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I've got a pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When I write my article this evening, I'll get all these things marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly about 'em. ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... There is a very good story told of Rowland Hill and Lady Ann Erskine. You have seen it in print perhaps, but I would like to tell it to you. While he was preaching in a park in London to a large assemblage, she was passing in her carriage. She said to her footman, when she saw Rowland ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... another tack. He knew such a good story, which, having told, he seemed to have forgotten all about the clock, for he said nothing more about it, and not much more ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... a good story—from a purely sensational viewpoint, and it was telegraphed over the country, that Grant Adams, the labor leader, was claiming to be a messiah and was rallying foreigners to him by supernatural powers. The Times contained a vicious editorial calling on all good citizens ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... remember how we came to know her, but some good angel saw to it. She used to send around little bowls of luscious dessert, and half a pie, or some hot muffins. Then I was always grateful also—for it made such a good story, and it was true—to the New England wife of a fellow graduate student who remarked, when I told her we had one baby and another on the way, "How interesting—just like ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... curious side-light on the origin of the comic column in the modern American newspaper, the telegraph giving to a new joke or a good story the ubiquity and instantaneity of an important historical event. "It was the practice of the press operators all over the country at that time, when a lull occurred, to start in and send jokes or stories the day men had collected; and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... It was a good story, and he told it well, though in his own junior salesman phrasing. He began with his bicycle ride into the green country, his spin over the fine roads, his rest under the hedge during the shower, and then the song of the robin perched among ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... on his horse and rode away. We agreed that he had told us a good story, but the next day others assured us that it had all happened ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... on MARK GRAY'S HERITAGE calls it—hardly too emphatically—"A mighty good story with plenty of entertainment for those who like action (there is more of that in it than in any other of Mr. Robinson's novels). The reading public will unquestionably call it another courage book'—which they called the SMILES books, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the commonest and most frequent in their occurrence. I think it is Mr CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at a forest one cannot see the trees because of the forest; and, in The Innocence of Father Brown, he has a good story ("The Invisible Man") illustrating the point, in which a man renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform. At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends to escape observation; ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... good story, as a story,' returned that gentleman; 'as good a thing of its kind as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had signed for the performance of a contract which was ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... "There's always a good story in a Crockett novel, and has been ever since the days of 'The Stickit Minister.' Sandy is a typical new Scot, most modern and most masterful of all heroes in current fiction.... As winning a heroine as any one could desire is skillfully wrought into the warp ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Bazaar now stands, and where all the leading tradesmen used to assemble, and he told us that the three officers were there one night and were terribly "trotted" about their losses and that they did not altogether "deny the soft impeachment." There was a good story current in Liverpool, I have been told, in 1745, touching the doings of Mr. Campbell's regiment which, when the rebellion broke out in that year, was suddenly called into active service with orders to march ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... said Abel, "I am very glad they have turned them over to the other sex since, as they are worn in the number which the present fashion requires. I should think they would be very uncomfortable. But, Arthur, I heard such a good story the other day, about Lawyer Page. He fights bravely with his tongue for other people's rights, but he daren't say his soul's his own before his wife. Well, when that affair came out about Morton's whipping his wife, as he was going to the Courthouse, Page said to ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... "A good story," was Howard's first thought, his news-instinct alert. And then he remembered that it was not for him to tell. "I will attend to this ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... oratory a good story is told of a barrister pleading before Lord Ellenborough: "My lord, I appear before you in the character of an advocate for the City of London; my lord, the City of London herself appears before you as a suppliant for justice. My lord, it is ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... possesses little or no tannic acid, and is not nearly so deleterious to weak stomachs as other varieties. Speaking of teas, I suppose that you have all heard of one brand of tea called 'Gunpowder.' I could tell you a very good story about Gunpowder tea if you wish to ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... Dread," by R. F. Starzl, couldn't have been better. Get more stories by him. "Murder Madness," by Murray Leinster, was a good story, but it didn't belong in a Science Fiction magazine. "The Terrible Tentacles of L-472," a good story; "The Invisible Death," a very good story; "Prisoners on the Electron," very good; "The Ape-Men of Xlotli," a good story, but it does ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... probably a two-fold reason for the success which Cooper's novels won at home and abroad. In the first place, Cooper could invent a good story and tell it well. He was a master of rapid, stirring narrative, and his tales were elemental, not deep or subtle. Secondly, he created interesting characters who had the restless energy, the passion for adventure, the rugged confidence, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... thinner," said Renee, quickly buttoning her sleeve, "but that's nothing; I shall soon pick up again. Do you remember our good story about that, papa? It made us laugh so. It was at a farmer's house at Tetevuide's—that dinner, you remember, don't you? Only imagine it, Denoisel, the good fellow had been keeping some shrimps for us for two years. Just as we were sitting ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... never tried,' said I. 'I'm not going to commit myself, Mr. Butters. But that's a good story.' ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't—not now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours, there's one mighty good story, at least." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insert it in this place merely because it is a good story, not because it belongs here—for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger—a college professor—and was called to the surface in the course of a general conversation which began with talk about horses, drifted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... consented, and it may be supposed that the "Chi Alpha" was very glad to put aside for that evening all other matters, and listen to the fresh, racy and humorous talk of the great poet. Underneath his grave and shy sobriety, flowed a most gentle humor. He could tell a good story, and when he was describing the usages of the Quakers in regard to "Speaking in Meetings," he told us that sometimes the voluntary remarks were not quite to the edification of the meeting. It once happened that a certain George C—— grew rather wearisome in his exhortations, ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... good story, Bartlett," Elkins remarked, slowing refilling his pipe. "Reminds me of the lame Greaser, Hippy Joe, an' the canned oysters. They was both bad, an' neither of 'em knew it till they came together. It was like this. . . ." The malicious side glance went unseen by all ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... our friends who came from Poole in Dorsetshire, told us a very good story, when Jerry Vincent and one or two others sang out in chorus, "Howe! ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... up to you, to have the youngsters turn and follow you as you passed, as they did with Charlie DeSoto or Flash Condit or Turkey Reiter or a dozen of others. Instead, he would drop out of the ranks, and who would notice it? A few who would make a good story out of that miserable game of baseball. A few who would speak of him as the freshest of the fresh, the fellow who had to be put in Coventry—if, indeed, any one would remember Dink Stover, the fellow ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... and slightly over forty, with the most happy and frank countenance that you ever met. He has a good story always on hand, can entertain clergy or laity, and never wearies in contributing his store of amusing anecdotes, which oftentimes are at the expense of his ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... softly, and when I saw the kind face of the middle-aged woman who answered, as by inspiration came to me the "story" I was to tell. For know that upon his ability to tell a good story depends the success of the beggar. First of all, and on the instant, the beggar must "size up" his victim. After that, he must tell a story that will appeal to the peculiar personality and temperament ...
— The Road • Jack London
... philosophy to give you the information," said Keogh, calmly. "The art of narrative consists in concealing from your audience everything it wants to know until after you expose your favourite opinions on topics foreign to the subject. A good story is like a bitter pill with the sugar coating inside of it. I will begin, if you please, with a horoscope located in the Cherokee Nation; and end with a ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... day a year ago, when the story was still so vague I could scarcely find words in which to sketch for you an outline of the novel I purposed writing, you said: "It will be a good story. I'm sold on it already!" To you the hacienda of a Rancho Palomar will always bring delightful recollections of the gracious hospitality of Senor Cave Coutts, sitting at the head of that table hewed in the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a good story," Cappy interrupted. "Let me tell it to you, Skinner. Oh, dear! I believe this is about going to kill the boys up on 'Change when I tell them." He wiped his eyes, controlled his mirth and turned to the general manager. "Skinner," he said, "did you know I had ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... a good story To paint a picture of life in the Arran Islands or in old France or in a modern industrial town To show us character and its development, as in novels like Thackeray's and Eliot's (Of course, brief plays like these cannot show development of character, but only critical points ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet. He may be a real poet, yet a feeble dramatist, he may have dramatic faculty, yet be a feeble novelist. He may be a good story-teller, yet a shallow thinker and a slip-shod writer. For success in any special kind of work it is obvious that a special talent is requisite; but obvious as this seems, when stated as a general proposition, it rarely serves to check a mistaken presumption. There are many writers endowed with ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... evening, the harpers and singers made music, the bards recited poetry, or the good story tellers told tales of heroes and wonders. During all this time, one or more maidens held the king's feet, or took turns at it, when tired; for often the revels or songs and tales lasted far into the night. At intervals, if the story ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... mountains, no negro in Africa can resist its sweet solicitude. It undermines like a wave, it rends like an earthquake, it melts like a fire, it inspires like music, it binds like a chain, it detains like a good story, it cheers like a sunbeam." No other power is immeasurable. For things have only partial influence over living men. Forests, fields, skies, tools, occupations, industries—these all stop in the outer court ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... good story is told, the truth of which I will not undertake to vouch for, in relation to the fixing of the base. By the original railroad act, as we have noticed, the President was to fix the point where the Sacramento Valley ended and the foot-hills of the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... haven't heard the rest of the tragedy?" I asked, holding out the case. "It's frightfully bad luck for me, but it makes a good story. You see—" ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... were among the leaders of the rather recherche society at Bluffwood, and the pace at which Bluffwood moved and had its being was such as to guarantee a good story in one way ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the other secretary of the company, and this action would have settled the proposition. Rogers, treated to a dose of his own medicine, had to make a compromise, and the men are still on the paper. The details of this good story are to be found in the Detroit Journal. It was fitting that when I began my exposures of the "System" this thug should be ordered to do his worst by me, and he began the series of virulent assaults ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Story-tellers can not be hired, and the guest at the proper moment says (after having prepared himself beforehand), "That reminds me of a story," and he relates what he has learned with great eclat and applause, as every American will applaud a good story, even if he has heard it time and again. At one dinner which I attended in New York story-telling had been going on for some time when a well-known man came in late. He was received with applause, and when called on for ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... her children—the one service I could give to her. There's a long, cruel story back of her marriage to Tank—a story of deception, coercion, love of money, and all the elements of common cussedness—too common to make a good story. And, as generally happens, when Tank married the girl who didn't want him he treated her as he's ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... that told me on't, said that two had fallen before it, and I put it up to nine at once, to make a good story better. Nine men had a more desperate sound than two; and when you do begin to brag, a man shouldn't be backward. I thought, howsever, that they was most non-plussed, when I ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... young man's face grew bleak at this. "It ain't a good story, sir," he said grimly. "It ain't anything like that. I must wish you good-by, an' ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... I am not a clergyman, I am nevertheless thy brother; and thou, as a Christian, much more as a clergyman, art obliged to relieve my distress." "Dost preach to me?" replied Trulliber; "dost pretend to instruct me in my duty?" "Ifacks, a good story," cries Mrs Trulliber, "to preach to my master." "Silence, woman," cries Trulliber. "I would have thee know, friend" (addressing himself to Adams), "I shall not learn my duty from such as thee. I know what charity is, better than to give to vagabonds." ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... "There is a good story of how at an election meeting in Cork a few years ago, when he was a candidate, one of a crowd of working women pushed her way into a brake from which he was addressing a throng in the market square and suddenly put her arm round his neck ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... the magazine with a reluctant sigh. "That," she said with decided emphasis on the pronoun, "is a good story. If all orthers wrote like that, 'twould make ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown |
