"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a preacher I used to know when I was a kid. He was always sayin' things that meant something else and when you found out what he was drivin' at you always felt kind of queer ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... moving in deep thought, and at last put his perplexity into a question. "What am I to do? I'm beginning to feel queer. I reckon the chances for my having smallpox are purty fair. Maybe I'd better drop down to Sulphur and report to the authorities. I've got a day or two before the blossoms will begin to ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... or when a blow will fall with these people," he explained. "You see, I've lived among them. They are a hot-blooded race. Besides, as you perhaps have read, they have some queer poisons down in South America. I mean to run no ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... continually confronted with what the world calls "freaky" or "eccentric" people, and these people are found in all degrees from the slightly odd folks to those filling the asylums, and strange as it may seem, no matter how queer they may appear to other people, they never seem so ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... around volcanos all my life," he said, "and I have seen some queer things come out of the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Atlantis. And your most polite ways would seem rude in Atlantis, or silly; so you'd have to learn their rules of politeness, which would strike you as silly. And you'd have to learn habits of living which would often amaze you; and if you were slow to adopt them, they'd class you as queer. Their ideas of joking would also be different from yours; and you'd slowly and awkwardly discover what was ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... "Queer, I almost had a premonition that something might happen to that twenty thousand," said Jack slowly. "Though I suppose if I say that it makes it look bad for me," he added ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... Jake go out to the old oak and see if all the turkeys air up. Be sure and count 'em—and take Jubal (the youngest) 'long with you. If you see your pa tell him I say to look at the brindle cow. She acted mighty queer at milkin', and I reckon she'd better have a little bran mash—Sairy Jane," turning suddenly upon her eldest daughter, "if you eat another one of them peanuts I'll box ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... peculiar dignity to her aspect, she put on while she spoke a huge pair of tin spectacles,—"if so be as how you goes for to think as how I shall go for to supply your wicious necessities, you will find yourself planted in Queer Street. Blow me tight, if I gives you ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to himself, as one noting a trivial occurrence. "Queer, to break a leg, falling in a bed ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... confess," replied the chevalier, after a moment's reflection, "that Blue Beard has singular means of corresponding with one. This is a queer little mail." ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... "I'm not much of a one for fairies myself; but you'll not deny, sergeant that it looks queer, all the children being took the same way at the same time. Anyhow, whether you believe what Mrs. Doolan says ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... to make of it," Walter confessed. "Every few hundred feet there are branches partly broken off and left hanging. Queer, isn't it?" ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... an adjoining store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... I noticed there was something queer coming over him latterly. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... trading vessel put in, apparently for water. She had the dregs of a mixed crew of Lascars and Portuguese, who said they had lost the rest of their men by desertion, and that the captain and mate had been carried off by fever. There was something so queer in their story that our skipper took the law in his own hands, and put me on board of her with a salvage crew. But that night the French crew mutinied, cut the cables, and would have got to sea if we had ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... began in apologetic explanation, "how mighty queer it was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages, without the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to sit here, night after night, and flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd do if we ever DID make one; and now, Great Scott! that we HAVE made it, and are just wallowing ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... eyes and stared at the floor. Roger's sobbing made a queer noise. Ahe ... ahe ... ahe.... It had an unmechanical sound, like the sewing-machine at home before it quite wore out, or Richard's motor-bicycle when something had gone wrong; and this spectacle of a mother giving heaven to her son by forgery of an emotion was an ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... deep breath, wanting to wind up the illimitable discussion of what might have been, though nothing could be legally proven, "it is a strange story. So our mercurial Ladislaw has a queer genealogy! A high-spirited young lady and a musical Polish patriot made a likely enough stock for him to spring from, but I should never have suspected a grafting of the Jew pawnbroker. However, there's no knowing what a mixture will turn ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of the woods. And the woods was real splendid,—great tall tulip-trees, as high as a steeple and round as a quill, without any sort o' branches ever so fur up, and the whole top full of the yeller tulips and the queer snipped-lookin' shiny leaves, till they looked like great bow-pots on sticks; then there's lots of other great trees, only they're all mostly spindled up in them woods. But the flowers that grow round on the ma'sh edges and in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... honourable youth, whose limping gait, while it added to the ungainliness of his manner, showed, at the same time, the extent of his sufferings. His appearance bordered so much upon what is vulgarly called the queer, that even with Alice it would have excited some sense of ridicule, had ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, in the duchy of Urbino, was the subject of a queer kind of scandal. Complaint was made to the bishop that one of the novices sang with such extraordinary brilliancy and beauty of voice that throngs gathered to the chapel from miles around, and that the religious services were transformed into a sort ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... "The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm; Or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays," the scene was shifted to the country. There you may read of many strange occurrences, as well as funny ones—how Alice fell into the water—but there! I must save my space in this book for the happenings of it. I might add that, incidentally, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... thing coming upon him, seemed completely to break him down. He had a feeling of the degradation that had been inflicted upon him, which the other man was incapable of. Before that, he had a good deal of fun, and mused us often with queer negro stories,—(he was from a slave state); but afterwards he seldom smiled; seemed to lose all life and elasticity; and appeared to have but one wish, and that was for the voyage to be at an end. I have often known him to ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... hear it all, and asked many questions, declaring her intention of visiting those cliff-caves at her earliest opportunity. It was so wonderful to her to be actually out here where were all sorts of queer things about which she had read and wondered. It did not occur to her, until the next day, to realize that her companion had of intention led her off the topic of himself and kept her from ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... what we want on the different days, and I never meddle with it from one week's end to the other, unless we have friends. The tradespeople send in their bills at the end of the month, and that's all there is of it." Her husband gave me one of his queer looks, and she went on: "When we were younger, and just beginning housekeeping, I used to go out and order the things myself; I used even to go to the big markets, and half kill myself trying to get things a little cheaper at one place and another, and waste more ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... "Even nice girls are queer SOMETIMES," he murmured. "Of course Princess Polly is always pleasant, and my sister Leslie isn't even odd, but Inez is freaky, and Vivian, well,—she's something ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... Philon settled into a chair by a window and stared down the street at the MacDonald house. Odd people—it almost seemed they didn't belong in this time and period, considering their queer ways of thinking and looking at things. MacDonald himself in particular had some ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland
... road. Still, though the fence was not yet in sight, she did not give up hope; a wire fence does not become visible at a very great distance. Her wet shoes were very annoying. The imprisoned water inwardly sucked and squirted at every step, and made queer sounds. Unable to endure it longer she sat down and took them off, and while they were draining, upside down, she removed the stockings and wrung them out. Although she did not get them thoroughly dry, the walking was somewhat natural ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... face Mr. Ryan. "He was always talking, sir. He was a regular nut. I thought for a while he was queer. He ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville
... a queer fellow, and if other men are like him I am sure I should have no feeling but contempt ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... many hours surged over the Banker. His eyes filled with tears; he dashed them away—and thought how ridiculous a feeling it was that possessed him. Then suddenly his head felt queer; he was afraid he was going to faint. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and threw himself full-length upon the mattress in the corner of the room. Then his senses faded. He seemed hardly to faint, but rather to drift off into ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Madame, the good people were not in the least disturbed, nor did they know that other people, when they can get nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer marches, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a church,—and with people hanging over the pews looking on,—and with mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen who had a large brood of chickens. They were all fine, plump little birds except the youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters. Indeed, he was such a strange, queer-looking creature that when he first clipped his shell his mother could scarcely believe her eyes, he was so different from the twelve other fluffy, downy, soft little chicks who nestled under her wings. This one looked just as if he had been cut ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... fun, for it seemed so queer to Patty to sit at a table and eat, while at the same time she was flying through the ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... women. I begged you to go home, and you left me there, as if a woman ever did anything without a reason. You are not without intelligence, but now and then you are so queer I don't know what ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... a kind of lamp burning in the hut; that is, a wick was floating in some oil, but there was no glass, such as Lucy had been apt to think the chief part of a lamp, and all round it squatted upon skins these queer little stumpy figures, dressed so much alike that there was no knowing the men from the women, except that the women had much the biggest boots, and used them instead of pockets, and they had their babies in bags ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It's a puzzle," replied Captain Baker. "Two of them were up at that farmhouse last night. The queer thing about it is that the woman up there saw the 'Red Rover' lying down here yesterday. Then the boat was gone when she looked ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!' And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United Stales, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,' and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... hung in tangled masses nearly to Rhoda's knees, Marie's delight in its loveliness knew no expression. She fetched a queer battered old comb which she washed and then proceeded with true feminine rapture to comb the wonderful waving locks. In the midst of this Kut-le entered. He gazed on Rhoda's new disguise with delight. Indeed her delicate face, above the many-hued garment, was like a harebell ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... add to the novelty and interest of our tour," we say. We rather hope it will prove a very peculiar road, and are prepared for discomfort which we do not find; although, at Spring Hill, the point of divergence from the main line, such a queer train is waiting, that one exclaims, "Surely we have come into the backwoods ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... He had a queer feeling that he had been a party to some horrible outrage. Yet all that had taken place was the whipping of an Indian girl. He tried to laugh away the weak ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... had a psychiatrist in to see me. He was a queer fellow with the most stupid set of questions and ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... Boy and youth afore that I served Pinch-a-Penny Peter in his shop at Gingerbread Cove. I was born in the Cove. I knowed all the tricks of Pinch-a-Penny's trade. And I tells you it was Pinch-a-Penny Peter's conscience that made Pinch-a-Penny rich. That's queer two ways: you wouldn't expect a north-coast trader to have a conscience; and you wouldn't expect a north-coast trader with a conscience to be rich. But conscience is much like the wind: it blows every ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Scintilla's acquaintance with her lover's tastes on these subjects, she was equally convinced on her side that a husband's queer ways while he was a bachelor would be easily laughed out of him when he had married an adroit woman. Mixtus, she felt, was an excellent creature, quite likable, who was getting rich; and Scintilla meant to have all the advantages of a rich man's wife. She was not in the least ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... with a queer apologetic note in his voice. "I'm inclined to believe that it was nothing more than a bunch of the younger, more hotheaded kids in the organization. As a matter of fact, Sharkey told me he was quitting as president. Seems you fellows in Venusport scared him plenty. Not only ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... garment, or practical suit of clothes, been devised—except for sea-bathing—that a busy man could slip on in the morning and off again at night. All our indignation to the contrary, we prefer the complicated and difficult: we enjoy our buttons; we are withheld only by our queer sex-pride from wearing garments that button up in the back—indeed, on what we frankly call our 'best clothes,' we have the buttons though we dare not button with them. The one costume that a man could slip on at night and off again in the morning has never, if he could help it, been worn in ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... had been a farm, but in the intervening years successive owners had so altered it by pulling down and building on, that, when it passed into the possession of Hartley Parrish, little else than the open fireplace in the lounge remained to tell of the original farm. It was a queer, rambling house of only two stories whose elongated shape was accentuated by the additional wing which Hartley ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... and knew that one was the man who had answered to the name of John Bard and the other was the grey man who had spoken to him at the Garden the night before. He knew it not so much by the testimony of his eyes at that dim distance as by a queer, inner feeling that this must be so. There was also a sense of familiarity about the whole thing, as if he were looking on something which he had seen rehearsed a ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... illustrated by Eltze's pencil in 1861, when a passenger in the "Highbury Bus" asks the conductor to "change him into a Hangel." Jack Harris has often appeared in Punch. He was a driver beside whom Mr. Edmund Yates often rode—"a wonderfully humorous fellow, whose queer views of the world and real native wit afforded me the greatest amusement. A dozen of the best omnibus sketches were founded on scenes which had occurred with this fellow, and which I described to John Leech, whose usually grave face would light up as he listened, and who would reproduce ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... question a reflection on the manner of discharging one's duty! A queer construction indeed! Observe, he says, he saw no third-classman in the front rank. It was his duty to be sure about it, and if there was one there to transfer him to the rear, and myself to the front rank. In not doing so he neglected his duty and imposed upon me and the dignity of my class. I was ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... women, who never fail to inform the public of their devotion to the church, join hands with the Oklahoma saloonkeepers, who never fail to declare that the church is a fanatical obstacle to personal liberty. A queer union it is, but some day the world will discover the mystery ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... "It certainly is a queer mix-up," said the man, later on. "I'll see if I can learn anything about them when I am away. Somebody ought to be able to place them,—although, to be sure, a great number of children have become hopelessly lost during ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... thirsty, and your manners frank and assuring, it is, however, not impossible that after draining a pot of beer at your expense, he may recall, with a grin, the fact that he has heard that the Gipsies have a queer kind of language of their own; and then, if you have any Rommany yourself at command, he will perhaps rakker Rommanis with greater or less fluency. Mr Simeon, in his "History of the Gipsies," ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... and half obliterated. Beneath were legends and proverbs, printed in quaint, old-German characters; while across one end, like a frieze, ran a ledge carven with gargoyles, rude and misshapen. On the ledge were beer mugs of every size and description, with queer tops and crooked handles. Above, suspended from the ceiling by chains, hung a huge Fass; and from the throats of the gargoyles, dragon and devil alike, dripped the beer, turned on by ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... directed it toward the Atlantic horizon, without being able, however, to find the vessel, for she could distinguish nothing—nothing but blue, with a colored halo round it, a circular rainbow—and then all manner of queer things, winking eclipses which made her ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... Mary till he came in and put a sudden sharp stop to it; and now she usually defended herself with "Papa says—" or "Mary says—" and though she really thought she spoke the truth, she made them say such odd things, that it was no wonder Lady Barbara thought they had very queer notions of education, and that her niece had nothing to do but to unlearn their ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A queer expression gleamed momentarily in the eyes of the boatman. But it passed. He did not speak, but made for the dinghy, followed by the hand from the yacht. They turned the boat over, slid it down and afloat. The sailor got in and ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... help oneself out through the world is a queer sort of business: one can not Keep, you know, quite altogether as pure as one can in the cloister. When we are handling honey we now and then lick at our fingers. Lampe sorely provoked me; he frisked about this ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... dog's body," for never—no, sir, I will not qualify it—never have I seen a greater love look from human into human eyes than I have seen gazing devotedly up into the old man's face from the eyes of that dog. How did he look? Queer enough, I assure you, for his cross, while an admirable one to yield wit and affection both, was the worst possible one for beauty, for his father was a full-blooded shepherd and his mother a Scotch terrier, without ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... High-Sky said, 'Let me go and see. There may be something I can learn in other lands. There may be queer people there—if so, I would never laugh at them. Let me go and see ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... voyons un peu the Bay! I have just called to Mr. Leverett to remind him of the islands. "The islands—the islands? Ah, my dear young lady, I have seen Capri, I have seen Ischia!" Well, so have I, but that doesn't prevent . . . (A little later.)—I have seen the islands; they are rather queer. ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... field, after all. The ground was so irregular and rough; our beasts were not too easy to manage; and then—but this is unimportant—it was our first essay at ploughing. The furrows are not exactly straight, and there is a queer, shaggy look about them. But the potatoes are in, and a crop we shall have, no doubt about it. What more can ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... queer idea it is to waste all that upon a thing that nobody will ever look at," said Dolly, her round ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... of Aunt Peggy, now that his enemy was no more, Bacchus became very magnanimous. He said Jupiter had been a faithful old animal, though mighty queer sometimes, and he believed the death of Aunt Peggy had set him crazy, therefore he forgave him for the condition in which he had put his face, and should lay him by his mistress at the burial-ground. Lydia begged an old candle-box of Miss Janet, for a coffin, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... increase in very unpleasant proportion. The livery servants form a complete lane on either side of the passage, and you reduce yourself into the smallest possible space to avoid being turned out. You see that stout man with the hoarse voice, in the blue coat, queer-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, white corduroy breeches, and great boots, who has been talking incessantly for half an hour past, and whose importance has occasioned no small quantity of mirth among the strangers. That is the great conservator of the peace of Westminster. You cannot ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... LAURA. It's queer, isn't it? Often I look at him and I say why, out of all the millions of men—handsome men, brilliant men, wealthy men—did I fall in love ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... discover when the possessors of certain unique works are nearing the rocks. Then he offers to buy. As his wealth is unlimited, and sooner or later all the nobility and gentry of England, France, Italy and Russia will be in Queer Street, his collection cannot but grow and become more and more amazing. He even had the cheek to send the Trustees of the National Gallery a blank cheque asking them to fill it up as they wished whenever they were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... Colette my arm nearly every day. She never talked to me much, and then only about the other girls. When I sat down next to her she used to look at me queerly. She said she thought I was a queer little thing. One day she asked me if I thought her pretty. Directly she said it, I remembered that Sister Marie-Aimee said that she was as black as a mole. I saw, however, that she had a broad forehead, ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... 'rivers are varra like human bein's in the queer twists they take, and the Deil's Lead seems to hae been ain like that. At present we are on the banks o' it, where we noo get these nuggets; but 'tis the bed I want, d'ye ken, the centre, for its there ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... strange," said the Duke of Hazlewood, musingly. "I have never known him to do anything 'queer' before." ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... were." Rosebud gave a queer little laugh. "Well, I just want you to let me ride out and meet dear old Mrs. Smith. You know what a nervous old dear she is. I just thought if I rode out it might brighten her up. You see, she'd think the danger less, if a ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... Patience," replied Mrs. Pendleton, with a frown. "She's rather queer, and prefers not to join us at table or in the drawing-room. She spends all her time up in the attic bedroom reading the Bible and writing Christmas stories for children for the religious papers. We don't ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... garlic," he said, confusedly. "Uses it on hot coals mostly, under broilin' steaks. Well, good night.—He's a queer chap, though," after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... knew just how much champagne could be drunk without injuring the health; she knew just what physical exercise was necessary to preserve what remained of her beauty. There was no trick of the hairdresser, the modiste, the manicurist, or any one of the legion of queer people who devote their talents to aiding the outward fascinations of women, with which she was not familiar. She knew exactly what perfumes to use, what stockings to wear, how she should live, how far she should indulge in any dissipation, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... "You're a queer un, Granser, talking about things you can't see. If you can't see 'em, how do you know they are? That's what I want to know. How do you know anything you ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... said the muleteer, wrinkling all the queer puckered leather of his visage in the strong light which streamed out as the great door opened. A most dignified Venetian senator, in the black and radiant linen of the time, came forth to meet me, and with the utmost respect ushered me ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... fingers, for it was irritating to have her refuse to understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? God knows they make enough as it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's no lie. Folks—they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin' fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman on the first floor has too much hot ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... may be not too much to say that, of all the political delusions which are current in this queer world, the very stupidest are those which assume that labour and capital are necessarily antagonistic; that all capital is produced by labour and therefore, by natural right, is the property of [187] the labourer; that the possessor ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... might be some kind of mourning for babies—a local custom, you know, though it did seem queer. What can they ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... Corner House girls felt thankful to the queer old woman, who was really no relation to them at all, but who accepted all their bounty and attentions as though they were ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... surprised. Seeing my confusion, he said, "I know the boxes as well as I know myself. I am the King's locksmith, my dear, and I and the King worked together many years. Why, I know every creek and corner of the palace, aye, and I know everything that's going on in them, too—queer doings! Lord, my pretty damsel, I made a secret place in the palace to hide the King's papers, where the devil himself would never find them out, if I or ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... hungry," whispered Jean. "Quite good-looking, too, and it's queer he sits there munching those crackers, instead of walking straight up and striking us for a meal. I don't like to see a good-looking man hungry," ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... at Causeau, we happened to have a queer original sort of man, a Nova Scotia doctor, on board, who joined our party at Ship Harbour, for the purpose of taking a cruise with us. Not having anything above particular to do, we left the vessel and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the restraining hand. "Do I look daft? Begorry, I should have been a-knowin' something was queer. All your weapons and your strange ideas. Faith, I wouldn't be surprised if ye hadn't yet established a planet-wide government. Sure, an' I'll go still further. Ye probably still have wars on this benighted world. No wonder it is ye haven't been ...
— Off Course • Mack Reynolds (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... chortled. "Sure t'ing! I see. De old geezer'll have a pile of shekels hid away, an' he lives by his lonesome a mile from de town. We sneaks down dere, croaks de guy wid de queer monaker, an' ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... continued Reuben. "It warn't the end though not by no means. Many's the time since then them words of his about the blockade-chaps, and his queer way o sayin em's come ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... perishing, as their kinsmen intended, the pair turned up a year later with a tale of a marvelous island many days' paddling to the eastward. On this island, they said, the sun shone warmer and the flowers grew larger and the snowfall was lighter than anywhere else in their world; and there was some queer story, I don't remember the details exactly, about an underground passage and sands flecked with shining metal, the stuff that trimmed up the holy pictures the Russian priests brought over ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... girls who were poor, who have excellent husbands," said Elizabeth quietly, spurred into coming to the rescue of the sex she despised. "But," she added, "there are many girls nowadays who are poor who prefer to remain single." She was amused at having been led into so unusual a discussion with this queer old gentleman. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... slid down on the word wick-ud made a queer thrilly feeling run down the boy's back, and all of a sudden the day grew wonderfully interesting, and this old seaport town one of the nicest places he had ever been in. The singer stopped at ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... say so. Everybody knows Avrillia. At least I know her to speak to. As to what goes on inside of her, I can't say. She's queer. She ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... heard, of course—in fact, he had made it his business to find out—that Jo lived in St. John's Wood, that he had a little house in Wistaria Avenue with a garden, and took his wife about with him into society—a queer sort of society, no doubt—and that they had two children—the little chap they called Jolly (considering the circumstances the name struck him as cynical, and old Jolyon both feared and disliked ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the rancheria beyond the pond, made by the adobe-moulders who had built the houses and wall surrounding the fort. There the Indian mothers were good to us. They gave us shreds of smoked fish and dried acorns to eat; lowered from their backs the queer little baby-beds, called "bickooses," and made the chubby faces in them laugh for our amusement. They also let us pet the dogs that perked up their ears and wagged their tails as our own Uno used to do when he wanted to frolic. Sometimes ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... entirely strange to her; or haply her filly nature is having a fling at the social harness of hypocrisy. If you (it is usually through the length of ears of your Novelist that the privilege is yours) have overheard queer communications passing between girls, and you must act the traitor eavesdropper or Achilles masquerader to overhear so clearly, these, be assured, are not specially the signs of their corruptness. Even the exceptionally cynical are chiefly to be accused ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... slipped out, while the other teachers gathered in one of the larger rooms to chat and unroll their luncheons. These were wrapped in little fancy napkins that were carefully shaken and folded to serve for the next day. As the Everglade teachers had dismissed Mrs. Preston from the first as queer, her absence from the noon gossip was rather ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... doing many other things, and best of all they organize the "S. F. B.," or Society for Feeding Birds, which spreads far and wide and is productive of most enjoyable acquaintances besides doing good service in the cause for which it was intended. Deeds of kindness to a queer old neighbor bring an unexpected reward, and the bright, wholesome book ends in a ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... favourite of the relatively few, a much wider constituency. To these late comers, rather than to the older (and of course superior) Conradists, who know it already, let me recommend this rambling, which is by no means to say aimless, account of the wanderings of the MS. of Almayer's Folly, some queer entertaining scraps of the author's family history, a description of the encounters with the original Almayer, and those vignettes of Marseilles which obviously were used as the background of The Arrow of Gold. This record is one of those quiet friendly books that flatter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... "It's queer how little one seems to realise even that there are second-cabin passengers," commented Mrs. Worthington feebly. "That was a nice man, and perfectly respectable. He even had a kind ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Ripley the sneak, though!" ejaculated Bert angrily. "The idea of him standing ready to 'queer' a case against his father's clients! I thought Fred had more class and caste than to go against his own crowd for the sake ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... He shall answer learnedly by the card—"A sneeze," the nose or stem being the organ. Then he shall ask Jem Sparkle "What is a sternutation?"—You laugh, old gentleman; but your devil's "mistack" looks every inch as queer to a sailor as our topman's ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... lady of title, and but very few lords (and these unessential) in all your tales. Now, when we all wish to be in society, we demand plenty of titles in our novels, at any rate, and we get lords (and very queer lords) even from Republican authors, born in a country which in your time was not renowned for its literature. I have heard a critic remark, with a decided air of fashion, on the brevity of the notice which your characters give each other when they offer invitations to dinner. "An invitation ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... Spanish priestcraft; no mural tablet—in this land of commemorative stones—has been erected to perpetuate the glory of his signal achievements; no street is called after him. It is as if he had never existed. On the contrary, by a queer irony of fate, the roadway leading past his convent evokes the memory of a misty heathen poet, likewise native of these favoured regions, a man whose name Joseph of Copertino had assuredly never heard—Ennius, of whom I can now recall nothing save that one ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... incongruous surroundings in the sweet memories it recalled, and to others it appealed, as many old-world songs do, by its plaintive sweetness. William was making a hit, and he knew it. Boy though he was, he felt to the full the bond of sympathy between himself and the audience. There was a queer sensation in his heart as he began the last verse, and he wondered if he could finish it. He had reached the second line when the voice of the prompter, imploringly pitched, begged him to "hurry it up; little ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... hardly be honest to take the "loafers" of Washington as fair representatives of their order: there are, no doubt, better—if not braver—soldiers in the front; and perhaps even the queer specimens then before me might look decent, if not dignified, under the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... been in little villages that dropped right out of a picture book. The streets are full of queer, small people who run about smiling, and bowing and saying pretty things to each other. It is a land where everybody seems to be happy, and where politeness is ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... "It's queer that my husband and Ben and Mr. Porter don't come," remarked Mrs. Basswood, when the meal was nearly over and ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... two young people set out on a narrow, but much worn trail. Keeping the sky always at their right, they passed through the thicket, Mona's eyes telling Billie that the queer horizontal vegetation grew ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... and stolid Sarah lying on her stomach on the white goatskin rug, was "the queer one" of the family. Sarah's nature was as uncompromising as her own square-toed sandals and about as blunt. Demonstrations of affection bored her. She tended strictly to her interests and felt small concern in the affairs of her sisters. You could ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... perplexity for some reason or other sent her spirits sky-high. And she pottered about the garden with him, and whizzed about the country in the automobile,—it belonged to the same friend who wanted him to look after the place,—and poked about the queer, rambling house, content to see no one else and talk to no one else and amazed at herself that ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... in London for his wife; and one artist begs to model her ear, another her hand—you cannot think how fair and soft and 'do-nothing' it looks,—and as to her portraits, they are in all those pretty painted books which Mr. Stokes calls 'vanities.' There is a queer, quirky, little old gentleman who visits here, who said that Helen owed her great success in society to her 'tact.' Oh! Edward, she owes her sorrow to her ambition. Would you believe it possible that she, the beauty of Abbeyweld, who for so long a time seemed to us ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... in a queer, hoarse voice. She put down her cup and sat rigid, listening. Then she jumped to her feet, her face white. "Edith," she cried, "it's the wind—it's ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... themselves audible save when the accompanying circumstances are such as to conduce to the most startling and thrilling effect; thus, although I had now been knocking about at sea for more than three years, and had met with many queer experiences, I had never, thus far, heard a sound that I could not reasonably account for and attribute to some known source; yet on this particular night—my second night alone in the longboat—I was sitting comfortably enough in ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... so queer that I'm going to make it my business to ask a few questions to-morrow. If there's really anything spiteful back of this, believe me, little Judy ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... that was needed was snow so they could ride down it on their sleds, for none of the children had toboggans—those queer, low, flat sleds, all of wood, with the round curved ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... command their own bodies and property; college doors were swinging open where they could secure the training that should fit them for the struggle to win educational, industrial, social and political opportunity for all their sisters. They were still looked upon as blue-stockings and queer; they had often to serve as the butt of ridicule; but they had education, income, a certain degree of leisure, and a social recognition which, if grudging in some quarters, was all the more generous ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... your rector's wife down there, and does works o' charity, sicknussin', readin'—old farmer does the preachin'. Old mother Sumfit's fat as ever, and says her money's for you. Old Gammon goes on eatin' of the dumplins. Hey! what a queer old ancient he is. He seems to me to belong to a time afore ever money was. That Mr. Robert's off...never been down there since he left, 'cause my darkie lass thought herself too good for him. So she is!—too good for anybody. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... STOCK-IN-TRADE The Book-worm, always most interesting to Book-worms, and almost as interesting to Book-grubs or Book-butterflies. By the way, the publishing office of The Book-worm ought to be in Grub Street. For what sort of fish is The Book-worm an attractive bait? I suppose there are queer fish in the Old Book trade that can take in any number of Book-worms, as is shown from a modern instance, well and wisely commented upon in this very number for January, No. 38, which is excellent food for worms; the whole series, indeed, must be a very Diet of Worms. Success to the Book-worm! ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... stock, Little Rathie, michty queer," said Tammas Haggart, Bowie's brother, who was a queer stock himself, but was not aware of it; "but, ou, I'm thinkin' the wife had something to do wi't. She was ill to manage, an' Little Rathie hadna the way o' the women. He hadna the knack o' ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst as a crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting slip stunning chances at game, big and little. They call him "a queer specimen sportsman,"—understanding little his love for the wild offspring of the woods,—because he never uses his gun save when the bareness of his larder or the peril of his own life or his ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... heeding this question, continued, as he stirred the sugar in his glass, "Well, out I sneaked, and as soon as I had got to my own door I turned round and saw Sharp the runner on the other side of the way—I felt deuced queer. However, I went in, sat down, and began to think. I saw that it was up with us, so far as the old uns were concerned; and it might be worth while to find out if the young uns really ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of this, my sweet, as I paced the drawing-room during my self-inspection, and saw the poor cast-off school-clothes, a queer feeling came over me. Regret for the past, anxiety about the future, fear of society, a long farewell to the pale daisies which we used to pick and strip of their petals in light-hearted innocence, there was something of all that; but ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... A queer little thrill went through her. Again she felt as if he had imparted strength. She turned back to ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... come to han', Requestin' me to please be funny; But I a'n't made upon a plan Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or honey: Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; An' then agin, for half a year, No preacher 'thout a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... is authority for the statement that there are about twenty-two match factories in the United States and Canada, and that the daily production—and consequent daily consumption—is about twenty-five thousand gross per day. It may seem a queer statement to make that one hundred thousand hours of each successive day are spent by the people of the two countries in striking a light, but such is undoubtedly the case. In each gross of matches manufactured there are 144 boxes, so that the 25,000 gross produces 3,600,000 boxes. ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... Mowdiewort, groping round for a subject of general interest, his profession and his affection being alike debarred, "there's that young Enbra' lad that's come till the manse. He's a queer root, him." ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... no doubt about that. The word which he had uttered seemed likely to be his last for some time to come. They formed a sort of stretcher and carried him from the room. Felicia was sitting back in her chair, white to the lips. I was feeling a little queer myself. I called Louis, who had been ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thoughts were as he shuffled mile after mile through the snow. The scene he had just left rose before his dulled "Injun" mind. How kind Mrs. Hunt had always been to him! She was the only one that called him "Mister." How queer it was that the children should cry because the flowers were killed! How little Marie had looked at him! Somehow Pete could not drive those sad eyes away. They seemed to be looking at him from every stump, from ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... to him with a vacant grin, he explained, stretching out his legs cynically, that this queer old Hagberd, a retired coasting-skipper, was waiting for the return of a son of his. The boy had been driven away from home, he shouldn't wonder; had run away to sea and had never been heard of since. Put to rest in Davy Jones's locker ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... expected from Richmond, a meeting having been had there also, at which Mr. Wythe, it is said, was seated as moderator; by chance more than design, it is added. A queer chance this for the ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Malaki went away, and reached the place where a hundred roads crossed, as Moglung had said. But he stopped there to rest and chew betel-nut. Soon he began to feel queer and dizzy, and he fell asleep, not knowing anything. When he woke up, he wandered along up the mountain until he reached a house at the border of a big meadow, and thought he would stop and ask his way. From under the ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... that. I tried to know him, and we don't get on badly as speaking acquaintance. But he seems a queer, solitary bird." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... uneven; singular, peculiar, unusual, unique, strange, quaint, extraordinary, queer, eccentric, whimsical, freakish, baroque, fantastic, nondescript, abnormal, bizarre, erratic, unconventional, curious, capricious; extra, remaining, additional, redundant, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... a book (once much utilised as a school prize) entitled The History of Inventions. I do not know whether there is a "Dictionary of Attributed Inventors." If there were it would contain some queer examples. One of the queerest is fathered (for we only have it at second hand) on Hellanicus, a Greek writer of respectable antiquity—the Peloponnesian war-time—and respectable repute for book-making ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... up on the counter right where you be now, Mr. Herring, and give him a stick of candy. I recollect he always wanted the kind with the pink stripes on it. An' he's dead, you say? We often wondered what had become of Ed. Folks thought it kind of queer he didn't come home the time ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... allowed only their heads to appear; and others of the fair owners were at once so devout, so cruel, and so self-denying as to shut out the eyes of the world entirely and at all times. But instances of this remorseless mortification of the flesh, seem to have been exceedingly rare. Queer enough these structures were, and sufficiently gratifying to the pride and provocative of the envy which the beauties of Bale (avowedly) went to churches in which there was no marble to mortify. For they were of different heights, according to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Collins to turn back. Fuge, our new butler, is of an extremely curious disposition, and I couldn't bear the idea of him prying about and perhaps reading that letter before Cloud got it. And just as I was picking up the letter to fasten it I heard Cloud in the next room. Oh! I never felt so queer in all my life! The poor boy was quite unwell. I screwed up the letter and went to him. What else could I do? And really he was so tired and white—well, it moved me! It moved me. And when he spoke about going away I suddenly thought: 'Why not ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... future hanging on the events of the passing hour, he yet has such a wealth of simple bonhomie and good fellowship that he gets out of bed and perambulates the house in his shirt to find us that we may share with him the fun of poor Hood's queer little conceits."(26) ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... he got hold of an account of the wonderful travels of a man named Marco Polo. Over and over again little Christopher read the marvelous stories told by this old traveler, of the strange cities which he had seen and of the dark-colored people whom he had met; of the queer houses; of the wild and beautiful animals he had encountered; of the jewels and perfumes and flowers which he had ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... us—Stephen Holabird's family—just six. Stephen and his wife, Rosamond and Barbara and little Stephen and Ruth. Ruth is Mrs. Holabird's niece, and Mr. Holabird's second cousin; for two cousins married two sisters. She came here when she had neither father nor mother left. They thought it queer up at the other house; because "Stephen had never managed to have any too much for his own"; but of course, being the wife's niece, they never thought of interfering, on the mere claim ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Nancy off," plotted Martin—and he had his mind's eye on his nephew—"I'll bring Sister on from the West and get Doris to share Ridge House with us. Queer combination, ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... the door, and shut and barred it closely, not so much as letting me stand outside to watch the sunset, as I always liked to do. It was getting dark already, the shadows had begun to fall black and gloomy all round the cottage, and the fire was sending queer dancing gleams flickering up the wall, when I hears a queer, scratching, whining noise at ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... in college and any one girl looked about the same to me as any other—" Bertram wrinkled his brows in contempt for his utter, undeveloped youngness of two years before—"but I remembered her always. When I saw her sitting in the Hotel Marseillaise that evening, I felt queer; and after I called on her I just knew I had it. Funny, you coming in that afternoon. You and I have hit it off so well, and here I'm confiding in you! It was a regular luck sign, ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... are marked!' he replied hotly, in his queer foreign jargon. 'In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes. Bah, sir, you ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... of queer chances," said Rosmore, smiling. "You could find only two ways of ending your story. You see there is at ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... he was in no situation to be reasoned with, stood for a moment silent; and then, looking round the box, and observing Messrs Hobson and Simkins, he exclaimed aloud "Why what queer party have you got into? who the d—-l ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay) |
