"Idiotically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... idea. It must have been my vanity. Some few men had conquered Le Mire; others had surrendered to her; certainly none had ever been able to resist her. There was a satisfaction in it. I walked about the lobby of the hotel till Harry returned, idiotically pleased with myself. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... better game of the two. Durant, who had regarded himself as a trump card up Mrs. Fazakerly's sleeve, perceived with a pang that he had counted for nothing in the final move. Mrs. Fazakerly had not, as he idiotically supposed, been greatly concerned with Frida Tancred's attitude toward him. She had divined nothing, imagined nothing, she had been both simpler and subtler than he knew. She had desired the removal of Frida Tancred from her path, and at the right ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... are times when one feels rather as if one had dropped off the world into space, but it doesn't take long to struggle through it. But then, of course, it is well to remember that Billy and I are rather an exceptional couple; quite absurdly, idiotically satisfied with each other's company. If it were not so our lives would be purgatory. The tragedies of these far countries are for the husbands and wives isolated from all other companionship, and having ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... while—five or six years ago, I think—maybe more; time skips along. Ann Apperthwaite's no chicken, you know." (Such was the lady's expression.) "They got engaged just after she came home from college, and of all the idiotically romantic girls—" ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... Hester," pled Rose, determined not to be offended, "I was only relieving the poor Misses Stone of a painful necessity. I am sure they have never put any dependence on me since the day I broke down—I grant you idiotically. I cannot stand the repression—suppression—whatever you like to call it. Now that there is a way out of it, I have felt like a wild beast in the school—the girls are so very tame—so much tamer than we were at Miss Burridge's—where I was not a black ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... as Lad was scampering ahead of her, past the stables, they rounded a corner and came flush upon the same nerve-wrecked hen and her brood. Lad halted in his scamper, with a suddenness that made him skid. Then, walking as though on eggs, he made an idiotically wide circle about the feathered dam and her silly chicks. Never thereafter did he assail any of the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude. The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels. The flaps of the cartridge boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with each movement. The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder and fired without apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred and shifting forms which upon the field before the regiment had been growing larger ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... I, thirty-four years of age and safely married, go to a club? Why should I, at my age, idle with a lot of idlers and listen to stuffy stories from stuffier individuals? Do you think that stale tobacco smoke, and the idiotically reiterated click of billiard balls, and the vacant stare of the fashionably brainless, and the meaningless exchange of banalities with the intellectually aimless have any ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... whole; self-interest, that great motor of the mind, had failed in his case to instruct him. He was often aghast when his sister ordered some article to be sold below cost, foreseeing the end of its fashion; later he admired her idiotically for her cleverness. He reasoned neither ill nor well; he was simply incapable of reasoning at all; but he had the sense to subordinate himself to his sister, and he did so from a consideration that was outside of the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... fortnight or so. It's positively weakening! We've just got rid of an appalling young man, whom my husband asked out of sheer pity: a schoolmaster, who'd come here for his health and inadvertently turned gambler. At first he won. He used to haunt my tea-parties, which, as we're idiotically good-natured, are often half made up of criminals and frumps. Extraordinarily congenial they are, too! The criminals are flattered to meet the frumps, and the frumps find the criminals thrilling. This was one of our male frumps: like an owl, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... out with a hundred or so, and that I had considered that sufficient to see me through. Plainly, it was not sufficient; but it is a fact that I looked upon it as a joke, and went to sleep grinning idiotically at the thought of me, Ellis Carleton, heir to almost as many millions as I was years old, without the price of a breakfast in his pocket. It seemed novel and interesting, and I rather enjoyed the situation. ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... my head feel empty," said the Koala. "But you'd think differently if a flock of Kookooburras settled on your tree, and guffawed idiotically when ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... left hand to her side as though something hurt her. The tadpole youth grinned idiotically and the barber seemed ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... "Absolutely and idiotically nothing. I'm merely sitting here on the only chair in this scantily furnished house, and trying to plan what sort of carpets, draperies and furniture to buy. Can you imagine ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... hysterically. Vivienne LeMar was grossly intoxicated. This woman whom Spencer Morgan worshipped, for whom he had forsaken her, was reeling about the room, laughing idiotically, talking wildly in a thick voice. If he could but see ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... other, idiotically, "I'll see you all right, sergeant. Come, Bill, fetch him over to the corn-crib and we'll give him ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... at her directly. "Oh, I was, you know. Otherwise, I guess I should have written. I was idiotically happy. And you?" ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the secretary, looking at it very idiotically; for what had it to say to me after all? In the first place it was locked, and in the second it almost surely contained nothing in which I was interested. Ten to one the papers had been destroyed; and even if they had not been ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... 'What are you doing? Idiotically plunging at your own sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?' asked Mr. Idle, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... jolly self that Charlie had almost forgotten the black crow. At this check, and the barren prospect opening out beyond, he remembered it, and felt a vicious little desire to pay her back for the pin she had stuck into him under, as she idiotically supposed, an impenetrable disguise. He went away, as has been said, in ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... she says: "In the evening Cousin Gilbert talked a great deal, and not only usefully but delightfully, about different religious sects and against the most illiberal Church to which he belongs—but how could I be happy? The more he talked of what I wished to hear, the more idiotically shy I felt and the more impossible it became to me to ask one of the many questions or make one of the many remarks (foolish very likely, but what would that have signified?) which were filling ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... criminal. He is not bad. He is a fool. He has behaved idiotically, and I can never care for him in the way I used to, but I mean to give him a chance. I'm not going to jump at his first real folly to get rid ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... its worst, I was not meditating suicide, as I think you imagine. I am a very average specimen of humanity,—neither brave enough to defy the possibilities of eternity nor cowardly enough to shirk those of time. No, I was only trying idiotically to persuade a girl of eighteen that life was not worth living; and more futilely still, myself, that I did not wish her to live. I am afraid, that in my mind philosophy and fact have but small connection with each other; and though my theorizing for your welfare may be true enough, yet,— ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... husband, Mr. Lawrence Pole. Larry, as he was known in his flourishing days when he loafed in brokers' offices, and idiotically dribbled away his own fortune and most of his wife's, rarely earned a better word than this epithet. "She ought to leave him—divorce him—get rid of such rubbish somehow," Conny continued with unwonted heat, as the tired motor chugged up the steep Westchester hillside on its ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... bed, she found the sheets cold and damp. Her limbs, which were still burning, shuddered with repugnance. Camille soon fell asleep, and for a long time Therese watched his wan face reposing idiotically on the pillow, with his mouth wide open. Therese drew away from her husband. She felt a desire to drive her clenched fist into ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... I said idiotically. "I'm sorry, but—I'm not." I have learned since that she has bright brown hair, with a loose wave in it that drops over her ears, and dark blue eyes with black lashes and—but what does it matter? One enjoys a picture as a whole: not as the sum ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... we were getting away from," finished Lotty. "It's quite true. It seems idiotically illogical. But I'm so happy, I'm so well, I feel so fearfully wholesome. This place—why, it makes me feel ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... for it, nothing could be done; the mare had taken her determined, long, continuous stride, the road was a straight, steady descent all the way back to the village, Chu Chu had the bit between her teeth, and there was no prospect of swerving her. We could only follow hopelessly, idiotically, furiously, until Chu Chu dashed triumphantly into the Saltellos' courtyard, carrying the half-fainting Consuelo back to the arms of ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... down, carried his swag to the side of the track, sat down on it and talked rationally about bush matters for a while; but presently he grew silent and began to feel his muscles and smile idiotically. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... all human beings thus idiotically ignore the fact that it is with screws they have to deal. It is very touching to see, as we sometimes see, people trying to make the best of awful screws. You are quite pleased if your lame horse trots four or five miles without ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... a queer, whining sound, covering his face. And the beggar's tag: "'Ave a feelin' 'eart, gentleman—'ave a feelin' 'eart!" passed idiotically through Gyp's mind. Would he get up and strangle her? Should she dash to the door—escape? For a long, miserable moment, she watched him swaying on the window-seat, with his face covered. Then, without looking at her, he crammed a clenched hand ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to make the most idiotically commonplace remark," he said. "I cannot believe that this is the ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... extended, and stared at a shoe. Alas! a shoe is a crestfallen memory. A crestfallen yesterday lurks in old shoes. Shoes are always crestfallen. Even the shoes of lovers waiting under the bed weep and snivel all night. But why sit naked on the floor, stark, idiotically naked on the floor with legs thrust out like a surprised illustration in La Vie Parisienne and toes curling philosophically toward a shoe?... "I'll do as ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... others might put upon it, never entered my head till this afternoon. It really made me ill, and I went straight to find you. If Providence is good to me the letter will miscarry and he won't come. But anyhow I want you to know that I have been idiotically stupid, and that I shall wish the Presidency and the dinner and everything connected with it at the bottom of the sea, if you are as much disgusted with me as you have ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Tishy's motor-wheel, found that among his former allies of the hunt things were not as they once had been, and was not pleased. Singularly enough, Judith alone was faithful found among the faithless. She declared that Larry had been brutally and idiotically treated, and that this engagement was the result, and justified all that she had been saying for many past ages. When Larry appeared at the Meet, his scalp-lock prominent among Miss Mangan's furs, Judith alone of his former intimates met him with cordiality, condoled with him over ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... far, I just caught a glimpse of a full, rather pale, face behind the veil, and a high bosom that curved out against her cape. The thought of all the hidden beauty which I surmised lay sheltered under the cloak and veil bewildered me, making me idiotically happy without any reasonable grounds. I could not endure it any longer; I touched her with my hand, passed my fingers over her shoulder, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... arose with a look of stern determination. "I have suffered much and idiotically—but I draw a line at this. I ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... wasted no time in exultation. He merely ordered his men to carry the copper utensils along, instead of destroying them on the spot. Then, he addressed Ben York, who grinned idiotically from toothless gums, where he crouched in the diminishing puddle. The marshal's ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... her brother half ran to her, white and panting, both hands outstretched: and deserting Lenox, she flew to him, anathematising her own folly in a rapid flow of French. "Take me to my tent now," she concluded, linking her arm in his. "I still feel idiotically shaky, and I am certainly no loss to my side!—Mr Bathurst"—she turned in Jeff's direction—"please forgive me. I promise I'll never ask you to lend me a ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... being talked to like a grammarschool class. Still, I humored her. "Why, then he has only one leg," I answered agreeably if idiotically. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... and his cousin swam before him in a golden mist. He felt that he was grinning idiotically, yet he could not stop. He tried to speak, but his lips seemed too swollen to form words. He put out his hand to grasp a chair, and perceived that he could ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... of her last few hours of freedom; oblivious of the fact that her aunt, enraged and alarmed at the unseemly and most untimely absence of the morrow's bride, was idiotically wringing her hands as she ran up and down in front of the cottage; worn out and weary with despair, Leonie, in her bathing dress, had gone to sleep with the full moon shining down upon the small, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... time a woman with a very troublesome heart. Hector Copplestone, a young man newly come to the Indian Civil Service, was sent to their Punjaub station. He made Mrs. Wilder realize her own charm, he made her terribly conscious that she was older than him, he made her anxious and distracted and madly, idiotically in love with him. She forgot that there were other things in life, she put aside ambition for a stronger temptation, and she did not care what Draycott ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... it is—no longer leaves me even for a moment. It will not stay here unless I am here, for it loves me, persistently, idiotically. It accompanied me to Paris, stayed with me there, pursued me to the lecture hall, pressed against me, caressed me while I was speaking. It has returned with me here. It is here now,"—he uttered a sharp cry,—"now, as I sit here with you. It is nestling up to me, fawning upon ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... that I cared for him sometimes, idiotically, like a timid, restless, trembling, awkward, little girl, always in fear of that disturbing thing—the love of a man—that disturbing thing that is sometimes so sweet! As for him,—you know him. He was a sweetheart, a society sweetheart, who are always the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... of accusation, had instinctively pressed itself against his pocket. Now guiltily and self-consciously it came away and he found himself idiotically echoing ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... all get together to-morrow and have it in for us," said the Gutter Pup, chortling. "But never mind, it was worth it. Did you ever see anything as idiotically solemn as Tacks Brooker? When he arrives they certainly throw up ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... and moping, for, with hands folded in the sleeves of his miserable halat, and pressed to his chest, he was shivering with cold, although the morning was warm; he did not answer Meir, but opened his mouth and great, dull, dark eyes more widely, and looked idiotically ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... always stuck by Em; may be she remembered how the old judge had talked once on a time about his mother's cooking. For all married men are, as I have said, idiotically cruel about that sort of thing. Yes, old Miss Baker braced Em up wonderful; brought a lot of dried catnip out west with her for the baby; taught Em how to make salt-rising bread; told her all about stewing things and broiling things ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... is noted. That this morning you twice passed the Casa Blanca has been already reported both by those who guard it and by those who spy upon it. If you would bring disaster to those you say you wish to serve, keep on as idiotically ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... us rapidly. After dinner we sat in the twilight of that old inn and discussed the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street from a point of view from which she had probably never been discussed before. I can imagine with what scorn the idiotically puffed and bepuffed magnates of the bank would have regarded us had they ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... looks wonderfully; and all the vivid interests of her girlhood cropped up again. She began to study things; to go to lectures and courses of lectures; to travel every year to a new place; to see her old friends and make new ones. She never liked to keep house, but Emma was so idiotically unselfish that she never would enjoy herself as long as there was anybody at home ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... not help thinking that she was clever, that she had marvellous presence of mind, and that she was displaying an inventive faculty which would have surprised Basil, though, of course, he must never know, because men were often as idiotically conscientious about little things as they ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hanging arms and her down-bent head, and then glancing at Billy, who stood idiotically regarding her, she laughed. He was a statue of miserable regret, and the limply held garden hose was pouring its stream unheeded into his low shoes. Wet as she was, and uncomfortable, she could not refrain from laughing, for Billy could not have looked ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... of these years is this,' said Percy, making an emphatic mark on the gravel with his stick. 'Every one else has acted, more or less, idiotically. She has gone about softening, healing, guarding, stirring up the saving part of each one's disposition. If, as she avers, you and Helen formed her, you gave a blessing ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into his arms. She slapped his hands away. He laughed and flopped into a chair, giggling. She studied him with almost more interest than repugnance. He was idiotically jovial, as sly as ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes |
