"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creature; might have the world at her feet if she liked; and all she cares for is a big dog, a bunch of roses, and some artist or poet dead and gone three hundred or three thousand years! It is very queer. It is just like that extraordinary possession of Victor Hugo's; with powers that might have sufficed to make ten men brilliant and comfortable, he must vex and worry about politics that didn't concern him in the least, and go and live under a skylight in the middle of the sea. It ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at queer i' the wind!" I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning! I'll bet a week's grog the chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates! Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... women were leading their patient little animals away from the stand on the sea promenade, up to Sorbio for the night; and their dark faces under the queer, mushroom hats were ruddy and beautiful in ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Nekhludoff was thinking, reading, speaking of God, of truth, of wealth, of poverty, everybody considered it out of place and somewhat queer, while his mother and aunt, with good-natured irony, called him notre cher philosophe. When, however, he was reading novels, relating indecent anecdotes or seeing droll vaudevilles in the French theatre, and afterward merrily repeated ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... how it is, but I feel more like a coward," said Charley, "just before a thunderstorm than I think I should do in the arms of a polar bear. Do you feel queer, Harry?" ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... deal about Portland, what a fine place it was, and how the folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall there was a couple of new papers come up to our place from there, called the "Portland Courier" and "Family Reader," and they told a good many queer kind of things about Portland, and one thing and another; and all at once it popped into my head, and I up ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... rider was awakened from his reverie by the old horse stopping so suddenly as almost to unseat him. With a snort the roan had stopped and had thrown up his head, quivering with fear, while with his nose he was trying to smell out the queer thing which stood in ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... a collection of rags, or the like. Besides these and other shows, there were the wandering minstrels, most of whom were "Waterloo veterans" wanting arms or a leg. I remember one whose arms had been "smashed by a thunderbolt at Jamaica." Queer bent old dames, who superintended "lucky bags" or told fortunes, supplied the uncanny element, but hesitated to call themselves witches, for there can still be seen near Thrums the pool where these unfortunates used to be drowned, and in the session book of the Glen Quharity kirk can be read ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... studying the enlargement carefully, "is likely to prove crucial. It's very queer. Collins says he didn't write it, and if he did he surely is a wonder at disguising his hand. I doubt if any one could disguise what the rayograph shows. Now, for instance, this is very important. Do you see how those strokes of the long letters are—well, ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... the squire; "yours is not bad music; you speak your words articulately, and even eloquently. Your accompaniment is a little queer, especially in the bass; but you find out your mistakes, and slip out of them Heaven knows how. Zoe, you are tame, but accurate. Correct his accompaniments some day—when I'm out of hearing. Practice drives me ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... must have," Bob answered. "I don't remember it, though. Everything looks queer and different in the storm. It's a regular squall. How quickly ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... son,' said the stranger, with a queer laugh, 'if you will go in and see the Squire, and come out and tell me in what sort of temper he is, I will give you my last shilling,' and he spun a coin in the air. 'You must go in by the front door, and I will wait for ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... perhaps, as well that their farewells were cut short. There was scarcely time for more than a few hurried words before the train moved out from the queer little station, and with his head out of the window, Aynesworth waved his hand to the black-frocked child with her pale, eager face already stained with tears—a lone, strange little figure, full of a sort of plaintive grace as she ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... duty. He had gone out for half a dozen teams and applied for membership in the exacting Math Club and Writing Club. The Commandant glanced up; Grayson was still in his extreme brace. The Commandant suddenly had the queer idea that Grayson could hold it until ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... I refused you coldly, did you? It was a queer sort of coldness, when I would have given my ears to say Yes, and was obliged to say No. Matters, however, are now a little changed. Anne is come home, and her presence certainly makes me feel more at liberty. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... of thirst most of them, of course, though I daresay the Bushmen accounted for some. Sometimes the sand has overwhelmed them and buried their bodies for ever. Sometimes after a big storm it gives up its dead as the sea does. I've seen some queer things there myself. Once near Easter Cliffs, after a terrific storm had shifted all the dunes, I came across the bodies of a dozen white men, all together and mummified and wonderfully preserved. God knows how they died and how long they'd ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... "insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her lesson. She is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in the afternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn't a servant in the house. I know Clementina isn't in good health; she is so nervous. In serving the rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... And theise weren the first roseres and roses, both white and rede, that evere ony man saughe. And thus was this mayden saved be the grace of God. And therfore is that feld clept the feld of God florysscht: for it was fulle of roses. Also besyde the queer of the chirche, at the right syde, as men comen dounward 16 greces, [Footnote: Steps.] is the place where oure Lord was born, that is fulle welle dyghte of marble, and fulle richely peynted with gold, sylver, azure, and other coloures. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... a sudden every bit of courage she had plucked up, was swept away. She felt a queer emptiness within her. And in her throat a lump had risen so big ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... and as any thing was better than standing still, I was heartily glad to see the "Chieftain," a bonnie Scotch whaler, show us the road by entering a lead of water, and away we all went, working to windward. The sailing qualities of the naval Arctic ships threatened to be sadly eclipsed by queer-looking craft, like the "Truelove" and others. But steam came to the rescue, and after twelve hours' hard struggle we got the pendants again ahead of ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... said William, holding the fish up to his eyes, "that there are rows of little teeth in that queer top-knot it's got, all turned towards the tail. It is they, I suppose, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... doesn't take long), but lingered most under the southern wall, where the afternoon light slept in the dreamiest, sweetest way. I sat down on an old stone, and looked away to the desolate salt-marshes and still, shining surface of the etang; and, as I did so, reflected that this was a queer little out-of-the-world corner to have been chosen, in the great dominions of either monarch, for that pompous interview which took place, in 1538, between Francis I. and Charles V. It was also not easy to perceive how Louis IX., when in 1248 and 1270 he started for the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... they were called in, and, before their sharp young appetites, everything disappeared like dew in the sunshine. It was a queer meal,—bread of various shapes and kinds, and not a large supply; cakes, an equally miscellaneous collection, from cup-cake which old Mrs. Kellogg had kept in a jar two months, "in case a body dropped in unexpected," to bread-cake fresh from some one ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... looked at him suddenly. "What would you say to going 'possum hunting one night?" he asked in a queer voice. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... "That's a very queer idea, Nancy. You know well that she was named after a brave ancestor. It was hoped she would have been a boy, and her father gave her the name he had intended for a boy; only we softened it, Nancy, softened and ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... my money away, and like a fool I told Some one or two of the loss. Did that make the master bold? Before I was one of his lot, and as queer as my head might be I might do pretty much as I liked. Well now he sent for me And spoke out in very words my thought of the rich man's jeer: "Well, sir, you have got your wish, as far as I can hear, And are now no thief of labour, but an honest working man: Now I'll give you ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... attended, and, at ten minutes to nine, Neale lighted a cigarette, put on his hat, and strolled slowly across the Market-Place. Although he knew every single one of its cobblestones, every shop window, every landmark in it, that queer old square always fascinated him. It was a bit of old England. The ancient church and equally ancient Moot Hall spread along one side of it; the other three sides were filled with gabled and half-timbered houses; the Market-Cross which stood in the middle of the open space had been erected there ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... hot and cold. His head began to whirl and his courage went fluttering away. Here was a queer complication. The quarry hunting for the sleuth, instead of the reverse. He fanned himself with his hat for one brief, uncertain moment, dazed beyond belief. Then he resolutely strode over to face the situation, trusting to luck ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But will tell you the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am sure, that there has been enough to ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... old house, with stairs a little out of the straight, and great beams appearing in unexpected places in the bedroom ceilings. There were brass locks with funny little handles to the doors, and queer alcoves and cupboards let into the walls. There was no fusty drawing-room, with blinds always drawn down, and covers to the chairs, but two cosy parlours meant for everyday use, the larger of which was panelled with dark wood which reflected the lamp and firelight, and somehow seemed to be ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... laughing roguishly, when he recognised me. "It's darned queer that Paris should be the place where they refuse ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... to follow inclinations that have somehow got the better of all the best qualities in me. That's how I'm fixed now. And, queer as it may seem, that's been my salvation—if you can call it salvation. When I first came here I was ready to drift any old way. I did drift into every muck-hole that appealed to me. I didn't care. As I said, moral scruples ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... story by a writer who has won a vast audience of young people by her stories. Malvern is a small suburban town in New Jersey. The neighborhood furnishes a queer assortment of boys and girls. How they felt and acted, what they did, and how they did ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... leading about; and this he did every day till I began to look for the oats and the saddle. At length, one morning, my master got on my back and rode me around the meadow on the soft grass. It certainly did feel queer; but I must say I felt rather proud to carry my master, and as he continued to ride me a little every day, I soon became ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... from seven closed cars, two landaulets, three Detroit electrics and one hired taxi. I know, because I counted 'em. The children and I posed like a Raeburn group and did our best to be respectable, for Duncan's sake. But he seems to have taken up with some queer people here, people who drop in at any time of the evening and smoke and drink and solemnly discuss how a shandygaff should be mixed and tell stories I wouldn't care to have ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the middle of the room looking about her. "I like it," she said, with a queer shake in ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... states, to whom one should not look for impartial judgments, formulated some queer theories to explain the Allies' unavowed policy and revealed a frame of mind in no wise conducive to the attainment of the ostensible ends of the Conference. One delegate said to me: "I have no longer the faintest doubt that the firm purpose of the 'Big Two' is the establishment ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Irish woman, a big, hearty woman whose husband was a prospector—or had been. 'Biddy Kelly's' was famous for its 'home cooking.' I went by the door twice, for I couldn't bring myself to go in and ask for a meal. You don't know how hard that is—it's very queer, if a man has money he can ask for credit or a meal, but if he is broke he'll starve first. I could see Biddy waiting on the tables—the smell that came out was the most delicious, yet tantalizing, odor of beef-stew—it made me ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... that Mrs. Brenning was on the other side of grandma, and wondered whether she were atoning for the sins of her chickens against Mrs. Jones's tomato-vines; she noticed, too, that Mrs. Brenning's hat had become askew, which gave her a queer, unsuitable, rakish look. Yet Missy didn't feel like laughing. She felt like closing her eyes and waiting to be born anew. But, before closing her eyes, she sent a swift glance up at the choir platform. Polly Currier was still up there, looking very placid as she sang with the rest of the ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... stove which in a land of plenty we could afford to keep going. Later in the afternoon the smokers found that a match would not strike, and the primus went out. Then the man reading said that he felt unwell and could not see the words. Soon several others commented on feeling "queer," and two in the sleeping-bags had fallen into a drowsy slumber. On this evidence even the famous Watson would have "dropped to it," but it was some time before it dawned on us that the oxygen had given out. Then there was a rush for shovels. The snow, ice and food-tank ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... be found in a cradle to cause the little occupant to die, while the whole town ascribed to her the annoyances of daily housework and business. Her unpleasant celebrity led to her death at the hands of her fellow-citizens who had been "worrited" by no end of queer happenings: ships had appeared just before they were wrecked and had vanished while people looked at them; men were seen walking on the water after they had been comfortably buried; the wind was heard to name the sailors ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... crown—all the Dunster rents; all the old hoards, with queer figures of Saxon kings, lay on the grass, still for each the beggar had rained down its fellow, and inexhaustible seemed the bags that he sat upon. Samson bit his lips, and the merchant muttered with vexation. It could not be fairly come ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... considered that particular episode closed. She believed that she had convinced him of that. And so she could not grasp the reason for that eleventh-hour summons. But she could see that a repetition of such incidents might put her in a queer light. Other folk might begin to wonder and inquire why Mr. Andrew Bush took such an "interest" in her—a mere stenographer. Well, she told herself, she did not care—so long as Jack Barrow's ears were not assailed by talk. She smiled at that, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... be presentable. "One day," says Henry B. Stanton, "I was standing in the street with him and Frederick Whittlesey when his little boy came up and said: 'Father, mother wants a shilling to buy some bread.' Weed put on a queer look, felt in his pockets, and remarked: 'That is a home appeal, but I'll be hanged if I've got the shilling.' Whittlesey drew out a silver dollar and gave the boy who ran off like a deer."[261] Yet, at that moment, Weed with his ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... several novels at Blosse's reading-room. In he went, not without the inward trepidation which a man of any imagination feels at the prospect of a battle. Inside the shop he discovered an odd-looking old man, one of the queer characters of the trade in ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... a glance from Norwegian Anna checked them; the high-school principal had just come into the front part of the shop to buy bread for supper. Anna knew the whisper was going about that I was a sly one. People said there must be something queer about a boy who showed no interest in girls of his own age, but who could be lively enough when he was with Tony and Lena ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... got that acorn and dropped it in, and was tilting his head back with a smile when a queer look of surprise came over his face. Then he says: 'Why, I didn't hear ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... always makes me feel queer," he stammered. "It sets me to thinking about home, too,—and home folks. I'm blamed if I can see how it is. I never had any home, and if I've got any kin-folks, I don't know where they live. But anyhow, that's the way the ringing of that bell always makes me feel. Say! there's ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... tell us what your next adventures are, Mary," exclaimed one clear voice. "Your family ought to be named Gulliver instead of Ware, for you are always travelling around to such queer, out-of-the-way places. I suppose you haven't the faintest idea where you'll be six months ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... know, Miss Horn," she said, "your house seems quite familiar to me. I almost feel as if I had been here before. Of course I never have. It's just one of those queer feelings everybody has sometimes, as if what you are going through at the time had all taken ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... this box," said the king, "why did he take nothing out of it but the jewels of the Duke of Bavaria? What reason had he for leaving that pearl necklace which lay beside them? A queer robber!" ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... love for her baby-sister. She gave up everything to her while she was alive, and they told me that she would not eat, and scarcely slept, for days after her death. Her father will have it that she is singularly sensitive, and has marvellous depths of feeling; but if this be so, it is queer I never found it out. Nobody could help adoring Violet—my ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... without (individual) brain effort; they knew things without thinking. When they did THINK of course they went wrong. Their budding science easily went astray. Religion with them had as yet taken no definite shape; science was equally protoplasmic; and all they had was a queer jumble of the two in the form of Magic. When at a later time Science gradually defined its outlook and its observations, and Religion, from being a vague subconscious feeling, took clear shape in the form of gods and creeds, then mankind gradually emerged into the stage ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... something queer about all this," mused Grace. "This is the second conversation of the sort that has taken place between those two that I have overheard. I wonder if he has persuaded Marian to put money into his real estate schemes, for I believe they are ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... some soft maiden rendering such an act of homage to a chit of a boy or a gross young gentleman impresses one unpleasantly. The curtsy of a lady to a prince or princess is something between kneeling and that queer genuflection one meets in the English agricultural districts: the props of the boys and girls seem momentarily to be knocked away, and they suddenly catch themselves in descending. It astonished me, I remember, at a court party, to see one patrician young woman—"divinely tall" I should ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... there are the elephants, two and two, Lumbering on as they always do! The men who lead them look so small I wonder the elephants mind at all As they wag their queer Long trunks, and peer Through their beady eyes,—folks say they know No end of things, and I'm sure it's so! And you never must do a thing that's bad Or that possibly might make an elephant mad, For he'll never forgive you, it appears, And will punish you sure, if it takes ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... so tired I no can fan myself?" she demanded. "How queer are these Americanos! Why, I have dance for three days and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... A queer look came into Ikey's eyes. His angular face seemed to draw up. His ears moved under their eaves of curling hair. "Ye-e-es, Missis," he ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... nurse, and in great demand to care for newly-born babies; therefore, through long years of service as nurse, she came to be called Mother Gooch. This good woman had one peculiarity: she was accustomed to croon queer rhymes and jingles over the cradles of her charges, and these rhymes "seemed so senseless and silly to the people who overheard them" that they began to call her "Mother Goose," in derision, the term being derived ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... said, with a queer, quizzical face. "Let it smell the green fields, Doctor. Ledgers and copperas are not good food for a chicken's soul, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... of the fellow who offered us the boat ride," commented Ed. "And the queer part of it was, how did he know we ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... yes, yes—I remember it very well—very queer indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence, indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an extraordinary concurrence ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... queer that I haven't been to see you ... but you'll understand, I couldn't. There ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... nigger, and preach to white folks. So now you see what good comes of sending her to school. If she should get converted she would have to go to meeting: at least, as long as James lives. I wish he had not such queer notions about her. It seems to trouble him to know he must die and leave her. He says if he should get well he would take her home with him, or educate her here. Oh, how awful! What can the child mean? So careful, too, of her! He says we shall ruin her health ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... stand thickly together, and their foliage should afford a haven from both hawk and gunner. To it joyously flits the tired linnet. As it perches aloft upon a convenient whip-like wand, it notices for the first time a queer, square brick tower of small dimensions, rising in the center of a court-yard surrounded by trees. The tower is like an old and dingy turret that has been shorn from a castle, and set on the hilltop without apparent reason. It is two stories in height, with one ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Toms brightly, "because they know I'm queer in the head, and they're afraid I shall do something odd. They told you I was queer in the head, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the coffee and had my lunch," narrated the watchman. "Then I settled down for a ten minutes' comfortable smoke, as I always do. I felt sort of sickish, right away. I had noticed that the coffee tasted queer, but I fancied it might have been burned. Anyhow, half an hour ago I seemed to come out of a stupor, my head fairly splitting, and my stomach burning as though I'd taken poison. I thought of poison, somehow, and more so than ever as I reached over to see if there was any coffee left, for ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... a callardo, and yet he was not a callardo either, though he was almost black; and as I looked upon him, I thought he looked something like the Errate; and he said to me, 'Zincali, chachipe!' and then he whispered to me in queer language, which I could scarcely understand, 'Your ro is waiting; come with me, my little sister, and I will take you unto him.' 'Where is he?' said I, and he pointed to the west, to the land of the Corahai, and said, 'He is yonder away; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... as keeps emself quite to emself. Lonesome and friendless, I reckon, for he looks but poorly. Plants out queer sasses in boxes all the time, and some of 'em on the balcoany itself. Guess he makes kinder tea of 'em, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... down the ridge disregarded. The moonlight in the clear air of the uplands was bright as day, but the intense shadows confused my sight, and I could not make out what they were doing. I heard the voice of Jorge, the artillerist, say in a queer, doubtful tone, 'It is ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... 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
... said, "rather queer is, I've never seen others that way; I simply don't know what a fear is; I really rejoice in the fray, I guess I'm the champion glarer, my glance seems to wilt all my foes; I've seen fellows crumple with terror before we had ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... so execrable an assassination, threw her body into a pit, which afterwards contracted the traditional appellation of Nun-pit." [Footnote: Philipotts, "Villare Cantianum," quoted by Littlehales, op. cit. p. 27.] Now whether this tale be true or an invention to explain the queer name "Nun-pit" we shall never know, but as it happens we do know that the nuns were removed to the Isle of Sheppey and that St Thomas persuaded King Henry II. to establish at Newington a small house of seven secular canons to whom was given the whole manor. But curiously enough, one of these ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... very queer young man, whom his few friends called crazy on account of his lonely and ascetic manner of life, and his ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... "you are going to die, Dana Da, and that sort of stuff must be left behind. I'll admit that you have made some queer things come about. Tell me honestly, now, how was ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... crooked back, yet he bore his burden so cheerfully, that Demi once asked in his queer way, "Do humps make people good-natured? I'd like one if they do." Dick was always merry, and did his best to be like other boys, for a plucky spirit lived in the feeble little body. When he first came, he was very sensitive about ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... a moment, looking in at them with that queer expression in his eyes. Then he stepped forward swiftly and closed the door. He had glanced sharply at the girl by the fire; she had shaded her eyes with her hand, the shadow of which lay across her face. He turned ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... me, and I suppose I looked equally nonplussed at him; anyhow, he proceeds to relieve his feelings in language anything but complimentary to the Russian Minister. He's the—well, I've met scores of Russians, but—him, queer! I never saw a Russian act half as queer as ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... who had been settled there during the Revolutionary War and was over the parish sixty-two years. He was an excellent preacher and scholar, and his kindly despotism was submitted to by the whole town. His way of pronouncing would sound very queer now, though it was common then. I well remember his reading the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... a mast, thirty feet high, with a sentry box at its top. From this he could command a bird's eye view of the enemy's operations, to a point as distant as Ste. Foy Church. When one of the besiegers asked a loyalist Canadian what the queer-looking object on the pole really was he answered, "It is a wooden horse with a bundle of hay before him." A second remark capped this one: "General Carleton has said that he will not give up the town till the horse ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... rector of a queer little old-fashioned church that has existed since the days of Washington. It is quaint and irregular, and I am very fond ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... all things queer, And some things she likes well; But then the street She thinks not neat, And does not like the smell. Nor do the fleas Her fancy please Although the fleas like her; They at first vie w Fell merrily too, For they made no demur. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... hear him only for a moment or so. I do not think I should have halted at all but his crowd blocked my path, and the sight of his queer wild expression, the gesture of his ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... queer thing happened yesterday. You know there was an angling competition. The pen was kept full on purpose. Some mischievous busybody went and opened the sluices and let all the water out. The anglers' holiday was spoiled. No, the rain wouldn't have spoiled ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... enshrined in Jacobite memories as the battle of Gladsmuir, for a reason very characteristic of the Stuarts and their followers. Some {216} queer old book of prophecies had foretold, more than a century earlier, that there should be a battle at Gladsmuir. The battle of Prestonpans was not fought really on Gladsmuir at all: Gladsmuir lies ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... was a singular commixture of an upper and under current of thought. Deep down in our hearts we were going back to English days; the cumbrous, quaint, queer, old, picturesque times; the dim, haunted times between cock-crowing and morning; those hours of national childhood, when popular ideas had the confiding credulity, the poetic vivacity, and versatile life, which distinguish children ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the building where Joseph's store was, they led me up-stairs to a small room and sent down to the store for the Prophet. When he came up they introduced me and left me alone in the little room with him. Their actions had seemed queer to me, but I remembered that this man had talked face to face with God, so I tried to feel better. But all at once he stood before me and asked me to be his wife. Think of it! I was so frightened! I dared not say no, he looked at me so—I can't tell you how; but I said it would not be lawful. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commons was an essentially 'queer place,' which no one could understand until he was a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhat mysterious quality still altogether attaches to that assembly. 'Our own Reporter' has invaded ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... his visitor off, he walked up and down the garden, gesticulating in the darkness, reluctant to believe that such a queer, stupid misunderstanding had only just occurred. He was ashamed and vexed with himself. In the first place it had been extremely incautious and tactless on his part to raise the damnable subject of blue blood, without finding out beforehand what his visitor's position ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... you were in a dime novel," came from Jackson. "More than likely some old hermit lived here. When some men get queer in the head they come to just such a spot as this to end their days. They hate the sight ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... turned to Mattie in a somewhat confused manner: "My daughter, my daughter," she returned, "you must overlook a number of little things. You will—won't you? Now, don't say I am vain. But it was such a queer—yes, such a vulgar and very common name to carry ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... a queer child! Here's all the room looking for you to dance with you, and you go and sit in the garden with a politician of five-and-forty! What in the world were ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... Felix, "this is a queer proceeding. Ah, there is the reason," as a strong patrol of our own men came thundering along. The leader pointed ahead with his sword, as if asking a question, and Felix exclaimed quickly, "They are in front; their horses ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... "there was not sufficient proof to warrant such a proceeding. Moreover, the actual meenister of the parish declared it was a' richt, an' said this Gueldmar was a mon o' vera queer notions, an' maybe, had buried his wife wi' certain ceremonies peculiar to ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... having. That is, if one had any sense. That time I plumped myself down in your seat when we were bound for Overton College to begin our freshman year, I was too much wrapped up in myself to know how lucky I was. Isn't it queer, though, how things like that are often the means by which we begin ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... be no other good place for them they were put on the outside of the house. Some of these stairways were wide, some narrow, and some winding; and as those on the outside were generally covered they increased the opportunities for queer windows and perplexing projections. The upper room of the tower was reached by a staircase from the outside, which opened into a little garden fenced off from the rest of the grounds, so that a person might occupy this room without having any communication ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... animal enjoyment of eating and drinking as much as he could get—and that was all. "This morning," the honest gardener said to me at parting, "we thought he seemed to wake up a bit. Looked about him, you know, and made queer signs with his hands. I couldn't make out what he meant; no more could the doctor. She knew, poor thing—She did. Went and got him his harp, and put his hand up to it. Lord bless you! no use. He couldn't play no more than I can. Twanged at it anyhow, and grinned and gabbled to himself. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... remarked, a trifle surprised. "Queer! I had a fancy that we'd met, and quite lately, too. I am in the cinema business. You may have ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rules."—"Well," said the squire, "I will propose it; but I shall certainly lend un a flick, if he should refuse me." "Fear not," cries Mrs Western; "the match is too advantageous to be refused." "I don't know that," answered the squire: "Allworthy is a queer b—ch, and money hath no effect o'un." "Brother," said the lady, "your politics astonish me. Are you really to be imposed on by professions? Do you think Mr Allworthy hath more contempt for money than other men because he professes more? Such credulity would better become one of us weak ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... seen what was passing through my mind,—not a very difficult thing to see. Pointing to the recumbent Percy, he said, with that queer foreign twang of his, which, whatever it had seemed like in the morning, sounded musical ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... "And is the queer little estaminet in Soho still in evidence? Do the men of to-morrow still meet there nightly and weigh the claims of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... of Crema and sauntering about the streets awhile, there is nothing left to do but to take refuge in the old Albergo del Pozzo. This is one of those queer Italian inns, which carry you away at once into a scene of Goldoni. It is part of some palace, where nobles housed their bravi in the sixteenth century, and which the lesser people of to-day have turned into a dozen habitations. Its ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... queston he cudna weel answer ye himsel'," was the reply. "He does a heap o' things; writes for the lawyers whiles; buys and sells queer buiks; gies lessons in Greek and Hebrew—but he disna like that—he canna bide to be contred, and laddies is gey contresome; helps onybody that wants help i' the way o' figures—whan their buiks gang wrang ye ken, for figures is some ill for jummlin'. He's a kin' o' librarian at yer ain college i' ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... "That is a queer bone," he said to himself. "I wonder what animal it belonged to. It is too big to have been the bone of a horse or a cow. It is big enough to have belonged to an elephant. Well, no matter what it came from," he said, throwing it aside, "it is neither ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... we all get money out of corporations that are compelled to do all sorts of queer things. But we can't abolish the system—we've got to reform it. That's why I'm ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... not answer. She bent over the black box, with its indefinable air of mystery, and the three queer letters on the top. She was, seemingly, trying to find a way to ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... filled Mrs. Salisbury's heart with a wild maternal hope. As it was, with Sandy barely nineteen, and Owen not quite twenty-two, she felt more tantalizing discomfort in their friendship than satisfaction. Owen was a dear boy, queer, of course, but fine in every way, and Sandy was quite the prettiest girl in River Falls; but it was far too soon to begin to hope that they would do the entirely suitable and acceptable thing of falling in love with each other. "That would be quite ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... "There is some queer old tradition extant about it," he said, "to the effect that the bride of a Catheron who does not wear it will lead a most unhappy life and die a most unhappy death. So, my dearest, you see how incumbent upon you it is for your own sake ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... complexion, and ungracefully-formed features. "Bless me, I'm so glad we'll get off to our country-house to-morrow. It's so very delightful, Mrs. Lawson, to have a country residence to go to. Goodness me what a close room, and such a hot, dusty street. It does just look so queer ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... two weeks I've felt very queer about keeping Tom's disappearance a secret. At first I dreaded to have any one know, on account of Fairy Godmother's horror of gossip and on my own account, too. She was afraid that some malicious person ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... so queer; I've known her these twenty years. A great pet of mine is dear Miss Thorne. She is so very strange, you know. She always makes me think of the Esquimaux and the Indians. Isn't her dress ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... closing this I glanced over the letter inclosed under your cover. Did you read it? It is from a lady, not quite an old maid, but nearly one, she says; no signature or date; a queer, but good-natured production, it made me half cry, half laugh. I am sure Shirley has been exciting enough for her, and too exciting. I cannot well reply to the letter since it bears no address, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... queer burden more closely under her arm. "It isn't really mine," she explained. "But they were so unkind to it in the house that I ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... said Patty, frankly; "but he's queer. You never know what mood he's going to be in. Sometimes he's awfully friendly, and then again he ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... it you are wrong about Beckendorff. That he is a humorist there is no doubt; but it appears to me to be equally clear that his queer habits and singular mode of life are not of late adoption. What, he is now he must have been these ten, perhaps these twenty years, perhaps more; of this there are a thousand proofs about us. As to the overpowering cause which has made him the character ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... something queer about it all. He arrived in this country only three days before we went into the war. He had a certificate, properly endorsed, giving his birthplace as Cincinnati. He arrived on a Scandinavian ship. He speaks German as well and as fluently ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... believe which have the most cannon; when we all live in real concord,—perhaps the gentle-hearted deer will be respected, and will find that men are not more savage to the weak than are the cougars and panthers. If the little spotted fawn can think, it must seem to her a queer world in which the advent of innocence is hailed by the baying of fierce hounds and the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... melancholy smile. "This is a very frightful situation. My poor wife will be quite distracted. She is such a patriot. Many thanks, Don George. You relieve me greatly. The fellow is rather stupid and rather bad-tempered. Queer creature, but very honest! ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... her eyes was so indifferent to everything that lived and moved there beyond the window, and at the same time it was so fixedly deep, as though she were looking into her very soul. And her walk, too, was queer. Natalya moved about the spacious room slowly and carefully, as if something invisible restrained the freedom of her movements. Their house was filled with heavy and coarsely boastful luxury; everything there ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... they have a sense of privilege—the good women of the houses will come out and talk to them as one might to a pet canary. Very often the house-wife throws broken food to them, and laughs at their scramble for it—the birds' queer difficulty in settling downward on the water, the wide sweeps they take to reach what lies beneath, the awkward dives and tumblings when they are near the surface. In full flight they are graceful and buoyant, with an easy command of their passage; but in descending ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... he had a sunstroke when he was quite young in India, and has led a queer life amongst savages ever since. But papa has come home and been asking for you. You will find ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... "Some queer, odd nooks and corners in Hathelsborough, Mr. Brent!" he said knowingly. "It would take a stranger a long time to find out all the twists and turns in this old town. But everybody knows the way to Bull's Snug—and here ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... the Secret Service men for keeping dark the fact that the Treasury has been tapped. Yes, the Russians, with the State Department to help them, will find a way. Everything goes by pull, you know," concluded Inspector Val, confidently, "and it will be queer if the State Department and the Russians, working together, can't call Storri's blinking out by some name ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... lady will be all right now," he said, "but she may be rather queer for a day or two. Fortunately, she made the usual mistake of people who are ignorant of medicine and its effects—she took enough poison to kill a whole household. You had better take care of her, young ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Mrs. Randall broke off suddenly. There was a troubled look in her eyes. Then she added lightly almost to herself: "What a queer child!" ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... have been many places," replied Helka, "and to-day I will have a chance to tell you some queer stories about myself. I ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... Storer, & family at aunt Sukey's—all well except Charles Storer who was not so ill but what, that I mean, he din'd with us. Aunt Suky's Charles is a pretty little boy & grows nicely. We were diverted in the afternoon with an account of a queer Feast that had been made that day in a certain Court of this town for the Entertainment of a number of Tories—perhaps seventeen. One contain'd three calves heads (skin off) with their appurtinencies anciently call'd pluck—Their other dish (for they had but two) contain'd a number ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... head thoughtfully on one side. Betty in her note about the wedding had said she was going to be married to Bessemer. But Bessemer didn't sound like a bridegroom. Had Bessemer run away then, or what? But some things looked queer. She remembered that Aileen had spoken as if Herbert was the bridegroom, but she had taken it for a mere slip of the tongue and thought nothing of it. When Aileen next came that way, she asked her if she happened to have got hold of one of the invitations, ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... not strike me very pleasantly. Did you ever see such a face? And her complexion is so dark, I should think she had always lived in the open air; and what a queer ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... His eyes are a little queer, but if you've ever noticed it, niggers' eyes are often yellow. The people on the place call him 'Cat-Eye Mose.' You needn't be afraid of him," he added ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... professor took leave and rode up the trail, his face was a puzzle. "That's queer," he sighed. "Judge Breckenridge certainly told me that he had made some very important discoveries himself. But this man who belongs here should know more about it. I can't make ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... of his failures. He's the sort of man Disraeli used to write about in his novels. One of the chaps who'd go through fire and water to get their ends; yes, and blood too, if it's necessary. There's been some queer stories told about him; they say he sticks at nothing. Look at that ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... their swift way along the south shore of the great lake, did they talk of Paymaster Bullen and wonder what had become of him. Donald was inclined to believe that he had either returned to New York, or still remained where they had left him; but Christie only smiled, and said Bullen was such a queer fish that there was no predicting what he might or might ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... "Perfectly true, and very queer when you try to think of it. Wonder how far it goes? Of course, one can explain the body's being an object to the brain inside it. That's mind and matter over again. But when my own mind and thought, can become objects to themselves—I wonder ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... "I've made a capital bargain. I've long wanted these paintings, but the man asked more than I could give. To-day he relented. They are very clever, and I shall have them framed." Alas! they were not clever, and Landor in his last days had queer notions concerning art. That he was excessively fond of pictures is undoubtedly true; he surrounded himself with them, but there was far more quantity than quality about them. He frequently attributed very bad paintings to very good masters; and it by no means followed because he called ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... was queer! I'll go right back to that store, and sit down on the piano stool. If Horace Clifford can't be more polite! Well, I ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... Mrs. Merrydew," he said, with a gentle bluntness, "if I hadn't wanted to ask your advice before I saw Reddy. I'm keeping out of his way until I could see you. I left Nelly and her mother in 'Frisco. There's been some queer goings-on on the steamer coming home; Kelly has sprang a new game on her mother, and—and suthin' that looks as if there might be a new deal. However," here a sense that he was, perhaps, treating his statement too seriously, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... That reminds me, what queer pastimes some folks can have. One man casually informed me that he attends all the funerals! But some folks unconsciously delight to wander in the sombre shadows of life. A funeral to me is a most fatiguing ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... you this," he said, "if you made connections. If you'd been later than five minutes past seven, I was to keep dark. You've got seven minutes and a half to spare. Queer orders, but the big railroad boss, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... to right and left at the villages on fire, at the quick flashes of Belgian and German artillery signalling death to each other in the night. The straight trees rushed by like tall, hurrying ghosts. For most of the way we drove without our head-lights through tunnels of darkness. "Queer, isn't it?" said my driver, and it was his only comment on this adventure in the strangest ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... ran forward firing was going on just as heavily, and the ugly rush and swish of bullets filled the air with war's rude music. It seemed curious to me that everyone should be out in the open with no cover; after a siege one has queer ideas. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... could tell a tale if he were alive, and that Lutz and the men at the agency believe they were shoved up there because they had said things which First Sergeant Haney overheard and reported to the captain. It seemed queer, even to me, so many men going from Devers's troop under command of somebody else's lieutenant, and now Davies himself has gone, and suppose he should hear of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... 16.—"New York. Saw delightful Maude Adams in 'Quality Street'—charming play. She is most clever and attractive. Unusual above everything. Queer, sweet, entirely delightful." ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... hump-backed bulls that set the neighborhood agog. People proclaimed they were sacred oxen and whispered that they were intended for some outlandish pagan rite—Alaire by this time had gained the reputation of being "queer"—while experienced stockmen declared the venture a woman's folly, affirming that buffaloes had never been crossed successfully with domestic cattle. It was rumored that one of these imported animals cost ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... table, in the centre of the atrium, another light glimmered in a jewelled lamp; but the atrium was vast and the diminutive light did not reach its far corners. The gentle trickle of water along the gutters in the floor made queer, ghost-like sounds, and in the great pots of lilies all round currents of air sent ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the side streets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toys upon the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consist of almost everything else in ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... infinitely easier than his former exploit with Henry. But he does n't. He blushes in her presence, brings her the best apples, out of which heretofore he has enjoined the boys not to "take a hog-bite," and, even though the parental garden grow none, comes by flowers for her in some way, queer boyish bouquets where dandelions press shoulders with spring-beauties, daffodils, and roses,—strange democracy of flowerdom. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Ken felt a queer thrill. There was something uncanny in the thought that they were spinning along, sixty feet below the sea-level, cut off from all ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... It was very queer that Wordsworth should ascribe to Messrs. Spiers all the intoxication of the place; but then he was a Cambridge man, and prejudiced. Nice shop, though, isn't it? Particularly useful, and no less ornamental. It's one of the greatest lounges of the place. Let us go ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede |
