"Talk about" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is so essential a part of the Christian character, that it is mentioned by the beloved disciple as one of the principal evidences of the new birth. Now, how do we manifest our love to our brothers and sisters? We delight in their society. We love to meet them, to talk about each other's interests, and the interests of the family in general. So, if you love your brethren and sisters in the church, you will delight in their society; you will love to meet with them, to interchange kind offices; to talk of the difficulties, trials, hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... I said consolingly. "You go on bringing my letters and telegrams for me like a good boy directly they arrive, and before I leave here I'll show you how to do it. Only you mustn't talk about it to anybody, or I shall have everyone asking me ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... 'Don't talk about what you know nothing about, Constance,' broke in her mother. 'Your uncle, Lord Northmoor, ain't going to lower and demean himself by dragging a mere school teacher up into the peerage, to cut out poor Herbert and ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... English in general were very well received. In a mocking tone he expressed his wish to know whether the army was much attached to the Bourbons. The Vienna Congress was, of course, just then in progress, and Napoleon showed himself nothing loth to talk about it. He said: 'The Powers will disagree, but they will not go to war.' He spoke of the Regent's conduct to the Princess as very impolitic, and he added that it shocked the bienseances by the observance of ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... grimly. "Now let's talk about the ball out at the Club we are going to give Nickols when he comes down the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... unconsciously to follow in the wake of public opinion, while professing to lead it. To the best of my belief half the dogmatism of those we daily meet is in consequence of the unwitting practices of this self-deception. Simply let us not talk about what we do not understand, save as learners, and we shall ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... burst out, "If that's religion, I confess I hain't got none; and to be plain, I ain't much inclined to believe such stuff as that. I have been a member of Mount Olivet Church for twenty-seven years and I never heard such preaching as that. That must be some new religion that's goin' around. Talk about bein' saved from sin, why there's our dear old Brother Simms, who was our last pastor at Mount Olivet. He died last March and since then we ain't had no pastor—why I heard him say more'n once from the pulpit ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... ready to answer the Master's summons, and to meet with her dear little boy who has crossed the river, when He shall say, "It is enough; come up hither," and "sit on My throne." Although she is a big, powerful woman, and has been more so in years that are past, when any one begins to talk about Heaven and the happiness and joy in reserve for those who have a hope of meeting with loved ones again, when the cares and anxieties of life are ended, it is not long before they see big, scalding, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal staff were with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private parlor, brewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely talk about Domremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel arrived from Joan to be kept till she came; and soon she came herself and sent her guard away, saying she would take one of her father's rooms and sleep under his roof, and so be at home again. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... made me a little more careful of my conduct. When the sun set, I thought he was going in the back way; and when the moon rose, I thought she was going out for a little stroll until I should go to sleep, when they might come and talk about me again. It was odd that, although I never fancied it of the sun, I thought I could make the moon follow me as I pleased. I remember once my eldest brother giving me great offence by bursting into laughter, when I offered, in ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... She wouldn't talk about it—just said I'd know sometime why she kept it.... Royal blue velvet, it is, the skirt halfway to the ankles, and sleeves with long pointed ends, lined with gold taffeta, and finished off with gold tassels. It's in a dress bag, hanging in ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... right, Johnnie. Somehow it relieves me to talk about Phoebe." She rose from her rocker, laid down her darning, and went to a dresser in the next room. She came out again, holding forth to me a picture ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... he went on to talk about his intentions, and inquired my opinion of some particular sentiments that he had been writing down, until he became so much excited that I was obliged to order the removal of all his papers. Poor fellow! he will never preach a sermon. In his impatience to become useful, ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... symphonies, symphonic poems; music for the orchestra, the organ, the piano, the voice, and chamber music. He is the learned editor of Gluck and Rameau; and is thus not only an artist, but an artist who can talk about his art. He is an unusual figure in France—one would have thought rather to find ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... let flow, With Tennysonian dignity and sweetness, Courtly congratulation. DRYDEN's neatness, Even the gush of NAHUM TATE or PYE Are not available, so PUNCH must try His unofficial pen. My tablets, TOBY! This heat's enough to give you hydrophoby! Talk about Dog-days! Is that nectar iced? Then just one gulp! It beats the highest priced And creamiest champagne. Now, silence, Dog, And let me give my lagging ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... say a word more. A few hours, one way or the other, can make no great difference. I will go round after tea and have the matter settled. I shall be much more likely to find C—— in a state to talk about the matter than ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... Dispute about that Matter to-Morrow; pray be good humour'd to-Day. We'll talk about the Charge to-Morrow; I have no Mind to hear any Thing but what is merry ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... round, if you would modernize the phrase. I recall also one or two exceptional and infrequent visitors with perfect distinctness: cheerful Elijah Kellogg, a lively missionary from the region of the Quoddy Indians, with much hopeful talk about Sock Bason and his tribe; also poor old Poor-house-Parson Isaac Smith, his head going like a China mandarin, as he discussed the possibilities of the escape of that distinguished captive whom he spoke of under the name, if I can reproduce ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... with a desolate sigh. "Sing to me, and keep the evil spirit quiet for a little while. To-morrow, if I'm strong enough, we'll talk about poor ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... reaction from the hopes awakened by the enthusiastic heralding of the newer aspects of psychology. It had been supposed that our science would soon revolutionize education; indeed, taking the wish for the fact, we began to talk about the new and the old education (both mythical) and boast of our millennium. I would not underrate the real progress, the expansion of educational activities, the enormous gains made in many ways; but the millennium! The same old errors meet us in new ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... bitter little laugh. "You don't know the old man or you wouldn't ask. He is just about as soft-hearted and human as a Labrador winter. I've known Billy since we were both little shavers—and, talk about the curse of poverty! It's a saintly benediction compared to a fortune like that and life with the man ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... same sister who told me not to sulk when my mother lay thinking of him, but to try instead to get her to talk about him. I did not see how this could make her the merry mother she used to be, but I was told that if I could not do it nobody could, and this made me eager to begin. At first, they say, I was often jealous, stopping her fond memories with the cry, 'Do you mind nothing ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... move stealthily,—you sleep and they steal on you,—very stealthily the Boyl-yas move. These Boyl-yas are dreadfully revengeful; by and by we shall be very ill. I'll not talk about them. They come moving along in the sky,—cannot you let them alone? I've already a terrible headache; by and by you and I will be ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... rotation system having permitted us to take from the field one crop every year, or four crops each three years, because their ambition is to have six and nine crape from the very same plot of land during the twelve months. They do not understand our talk about good and bad soils, because they make the soils themselves, and make it in such quantities as to be compelled yearly to seed some of it; otherwise it would raise up the levels of their gardens by half an inch, every ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... to prolong this discussion. So much talk about an affair, which, in his opinion, at least, was an extremely simple one, seemed to him utterly ridiculous, and irritated him beyond endurance. "It strikes me this is much ado about nothing," he remarked. "One would suppose, to hear you talk, that you were the greatest criminal in ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... very late with them that night, for there were many things to talk about, and they were so glad to see me that even at the end I ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... she exclaimed. "You should be a Happy Woman. You have your Husband's Love and you have your Children, both of which are denied a Woman of my Assured Position in the Two Minute Class of the Terrible Spenders. Talk about Hardships! Do you know what it is to lead the Grand March, surrounded by 800 Assegai-Throwers, Harpooners and Cannibal Queens, who are pointing you out as the Wife of the Malefactor who is about to ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... presentin' themselves, ready to be talked about—reeled off—as it were, and then how quietly they coil themselves away, to lay there, till some new sight, or sound, or idea, or feelin' stirs 'em into life, and they come up again fresh and plain as ever. Some people talk about forgotten things, but I don't believe that any matter that gets fairly anchored in a man's mind, can ever be forgotten, until age has broken the power of memory. It is there, and will stay there, in spite of the ten thousand other things that get piled in on top of it, and some day ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... the life of the salons began anew, but it was very different from what it had been. There was no longer any talk about political economy, theology, popular education, administrative abuses, social and political reforms. Everything that had any relation to politics in the wider sense of the term was by tacit consent avoided. Discussions there were as of old, but they were now confined to literary topics, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... farmer said. "I should not be surprised if the general wakes up them Germans when the Delaware gets frozen. I heard some talk about it from some men who came past yesterday. Their time was expired, they said, and they were going home. I hear, too, that they are gathering a force down near Mount Holly, and I reckon that they ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... canonize a saint? Let us suppose some good man dies, and all his neighbors talk about his holy fife, how much he did for the poor, how he prayed, fasted, and mortified himself. All these accounts of his life are collected and sent to Rome, to the Holy Father or to the cardinals appointed by him to examine such statements. These ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... sit here," he said willfully, turning his back toward the table. "I don't want to talk about the tunnel; I want to turn the conversation upon ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... khaki chalked up the same address on their gun carriages. Idlers in blouses along the quays might scream the "Marseillaise." Gangs of ruffians in back streets might break the windows of the shops of German tradespeople. Some bitter old campaigners might talk about revenge. But when the drums beat for the French regiments to start away for Alsace and the Belgian frontier, the heart of France was ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... communicator, no teletype, no radio, no form of communication except viva voce. And that means you talking to somebody else, Sergeant, with no microphone around. Understand? And from now on you will not talk about anything at all except to these gentlemen and ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... investment!" cried Harran, furious. "It's fine to talk about fair interest. I know and you know that the total earnings of the P. and S. W.—their main, branch and leased lines for last year—was between nineteen and twenty millions of dollars. Do you mean to say that twenty million dollars ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... I? I am quite comfortable. Just sit down for five minutes and talk about the old people. I have any number of questions to ask you," ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... had his reasons," Mrs. Vivian suggested, and then she ventured to explain: "He still cares for Angela, and it was painful to him to talk about ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... you rather taken the poor fellow for granted?" She felt an unexpected blush burn into her cheek. It stained the soft flesh to her throat. For she was discovering that the nonsense begun so lightly was embarrassing. She did not want to talk about the feelings of Tom Morse toward her. "It's all ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... out soon. And a leader — a real pioneer in thought, you know, would scarcely care to talk about ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... English Liberals once see clearly that indefinite talk about Home Rule means either separation or the entire recasting of the whole system of English as well as Irish government, they will then be in a position to decide their policy. At present they are being led by the Daily News and Morley ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... to come and stay with me for a time," pursued Kitty steadily, on the principle of striking while the iron is hot. "Later on I'll bring her down to Mallow, and later still we can talk about the wedding. You'll have to ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the making of 'The Arabian nights'!" said Narkom, waxing excited as his thoughts were thus shoved back to the amazing affair he had in hand. "All your 'Red Crawls' and your 'Sacred Sons' and your 'Nine-fingered Skeletons' are fools to it for wonder and mystery. Talk about witchcraft! Talk about wizards and giants and enchanters and the things that witches did in the days of Macbeth! God bless my soul, they're nothing to it. Those were the days of magic, anyhow, so you can take it or leave it, as you like; but this—— Look here, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... easy to say 'keep cool!' But I'm tired of this everlasting 'keep cool!' Quit drinking and go to work, and then it'll be time to talk about keeping cool. Here I've been all the morning scraping up chips to make the fire burn. Not a stick in the wood-pile, and you lazing it down to Harry Arnold's. I wish to goodness he was hung! It's too bad! I'm out of all ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... by the parlor-lamp, with the evening paper in my lap, of which I had not read a word. He came and sat down by the table, and we talked a little while. I tried to find things to talk about, and wondered if it always would be so. I felt as if some day I should give out entirely, and have to go through bankruptcy. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... most dreadfully cruel, but was informed that it had been done from time immemorial, so I ceased to talk about it, knowing that I could not reform those aged countries, and realizing, faintly perhaps (for I had never seen much of the rough side of life), that just as cruel things were done to the cattle we consume ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... this advice with the expression of tolerant amusement he always wore when women began to talk about the more serious affairs of life in his presence, made an honest, if vulgar, attempt to lighten the solemnity of the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... he said, "that you and I should stay here together for a few little moments and talk about what a beautiful day it is—if that is impossible, why then I must apologize for intruding upon you and go on my way, inexorably pursued by the would-be murderer who now stands six paces to the rear. Is it ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... husband had been sent to the galleys for life, and who was therefore, in all but the legal incidents of her position, a widow. Very little is known about her qualities. She wrote a little piece which Comte rated so preposterously as to talk about George Sand in the same sentence; it is in truth a flimsy performance, though it contains one or two gracious thoughts. There is true beauty in the saying—'It is unworthy of a noble nature to diffuse its pain.' Madame de Vaux's letters speak well for her good sense and good feeling, and it would ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... length for the British Isles, with bibliographical references for parallels abroad, and finally, remarks where the tales seemed to need them. In these I have not wearied or worried the reader with conventional tall talk about the Celtic genius and its manifestations in the folk-tale; on that topic one can only repeat Matthew Arnold when at his best, in his Celtic Literature. Nor have I attempted to deal with the more general aspects of the study of the ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... our hands and at our command, you could not do it. This government would be very weak indeed if a majority with a disciplined army and navy and a well-filled treasury could not preserve itself when attacked by an unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority. All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want to dissolve ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... her hand away. "That," she said, "is purely personal. It will not do any one any good to talk about it. So it is all sealed up ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... (he didn't know she was dead), King Manuel, the Czar of Russia, the Presidents of all the South American republics, the Sultan of Turkey, President Roosevelt, and Sebastian Cabral,—Mr. Landover positively loved to hear him talk. He made a point of getting him to talk about Percival a great deal of the time. He also liked the way in which the prodigious Manuel deferred to him. It inspired the philanthropic motives that led him to share his very excellent cigars with the doughty foreman. Moreover, he had ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... uncle Nathan, laying his hand or her head, "you and I have got a secret between us. It's the first time in years that I have mentioned Anna. We needn't be afraid to talk about her now, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... "I guess we won't talk about forgiveness, dearie—we're about even, I think—but we've had our lesson. I've got my girl back—and, Evelyn, I want you and Fred to come home with me for Christmas and forever. You've got the old man solid, Evelyn. I couldn't ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... they approached the fire, and both being pretty well tired, they were glad to sit down and talk about the wonderful store of goods they had discovered. Jack was afraid that the owners might come back to look for their property and discover them, but Bill was of opinion that they had been placed there by a party of smugglers, who ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... in either. The world might be made to sustain, in comfort, even in the present comparatively infant state of the arts and sciences, at least forty or fifty times its present number of inhabitants. It will be time enough a thousand or two thousand years to come, to begin to talk about the danger of the world's being over-peopled; and, above all, to talk about justifying what we know is, in the abstract, very wrong, to prevent a distant imagined evil; one, in fact, which may not, and probably will not ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... leave the little church of Pevy; I should so much have liked to wait until those two priests came out, to speak to them, and talk about other things than war, massacres and pillage. But duty called me to my men, ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... Earl, "and his proud Scotch stomach will be up in an instant, and he will pay you with a shot for your pains.—Why, he thinks himself cock of the walk, this strutting bantam, notwithstanding the lesson I gave him before—And what do you think?—He has the impudence to talk about my attentions to Lady Binks as inconsistent with the prosecution of my suit to his sister! Yes, Hal—this awkward Scotch laird, that has scarce tact enough to make love to a ewe-milker, or, at best, to some daggletailed ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... that was mentioned in Nigel's letter as that of the Egyptian who had arranged for the hire by Nigel of the Loulia. Isaacson encouraged Hassan to talk about Ibrahim, while he kept still and sipped his tea ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... plumbers, with the implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,—talk by the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious; and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job. The work dragged a little,—as ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... afraid I bore you sadly with this perpetual talk about my affairs; I will try and stow it; but you see, it touches me nearly. I'm the miser in earnest now: last night, when I felt so ill, the supposed ague chill, it seemed strange not to be able to afford a drink. I would have walked half a mile, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that sort of thing we must smoke," he said, laughing between the puffs. "I can offer you lots of tobacco—I'm sorry I've got no cigars. Wait till you see Mrs. Leadbatter—my landlady—then you'll talk about houris. Poverty may not be a crime, but it seems to make people awful bores. Wonder if it'll have that effect on me? Ach Himmel! how that woman bores me. No, there's no denying it—there's my pouch, old man—I ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... of passengers this trip," he said. "I don't seem to see any who look interesting. All Big Business and that sort of thing. I must say it's nice to have someone who can talk about books, and so ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... out for another week or two, and then we came into port, and were released from his tyranny. I got paid off, and then I met my messmate, and we had some talk about the matter. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... golf. Peter had thought that one really couldn't; it was such a chilly game. Well, of course, one might speak at the Union, said the persevering friend, insisting, it seemed, on finding Peter a career. "Don't they talk about politics?" enquired Peter. "I couldn't do that, you know. I don't approve of politics. If ever I have a vote I shall sell it to the highest female bidder. Fancy being a Liberal or a Conservative, out of all the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... dear old people," cried Quicksilver, with the liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks I do not ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... sound like—talk about the weather?" asked Mollie sarcastically. "You just wait and see what I'll do, Betty Nelson!" and she marched out with her nose in ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... you have three children, you get visits now and then from—from married women, who know something of medical matters, and they talk about one thing ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... two other ladies, in a paved parlour, listening to a maiden who reads aloud the story of the Siege of Thebes. Greeting the company, he is welcomed by Cressida, who tells him that for three nights she has dreamed of him. After some lively talk about the book they had been reading, Pandarus asks his niece to do away her hood, to show her face bare, to lay aside the book, to rise up and dance, "and let us do to May some observance." Cressida cries out, "God forbid!" and asks ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... to fight," I said to myself. "They talk about freedom, and drag me away as a slave; but I too ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... associate with this pretty pose of royal simplicity, discussed around her the troublous affairs of the most turbulent kingdom in Christendom: and after her dinner, in the languor of the afternoon, one wonders if the lovely lady was diligent over her Livy or rather seduced her preceptor to talk about Paris, that much-desired Lutetia which he had so longed for, as no doubt in the bottom of her heart she too was sometimes doing. The two so unlike each other—the beautiful young princess not quite twenty, the old scholar and schoolmaster though a poet withal, drawing near the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... "Philip," though they did not mar the exquisite tenderness and charm of "Denis Duval." However that might be, his inimitable style was as fresh as ever, with its passages of melancholy, its ease, its flexible strength, and unlooked-for cadences. It was the talk about life, and the tone of that talk, which fell silent when Thackeray died, that we all felt as an irremediable loss. There is an old story that Pindar had never in his lifetime written an ode in praise of Persephone, the goddess of death and the dead, and that after he ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... the specialist, smiling. "And I agree with you, Miss Martin. We mustn't talk about telegrams, even among ourselves, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Tanrade would dine together. It would be then a dinner for two. I have never known a woman as discreet as Alice. She had insisted that I dine with them. In Paris Alice might not have insisted, but in the lost village, with so many old women with nothing to talk about save other peoples' affairs! ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... little specimen of young America! a young hero!—could have jumped over two Johnny Bulls, although my dust-heap happened to be this side of the water. Well do I remember him! and you are the sister that he used to talk about, till I really thought the fellow had got into a ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... once seen this Fairy loves the sun and the woods and all living creatures, and knows things without being taught, and what men will say before they say it. Yet, while he knows all these strange things, and what birds talk about, and what songs the winds sing to the trees, he ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... not reply to this with anything beyond a mere assent. Her mind was fixed on the poem itself. She began to talk about it, and I was surprised to find how thoroughly she entered into it and understood it. She seemed to have crowded the growth of a lifetime into the last few months. At length I told her how unhappy I had felt for some time, at ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... century as an arch-simpleton among nations. Its vanity is stupendous, eclipsing all previously known vanities. The Great General Staff must know fairly well how matters stand, and yet not the mere ignorant public, but the King of Bavaria himself, had the fatuity as late as last week to talk about the new territory that Germany would annex as a result ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... The American way of saying "advertisement" is more sensible than ours of saying "advertisment," since we say "advertise" too. But then, although the Americans say "inquire," just as we do, they illogically put the stress on the first syllable when they talk about an "inquiry." The Tower of Babel is thus carried up one storey higher. The original idea was merely to confuse languages; it cannot ever have been wished that two friendly peoples should speak the ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... "Talk about your war 'n' patriotic songs, your 'Rule Britannias' 'n' 'Maple Leaves,' your church hymns 'n' love songs, 'n' fancy French op'ras like they have down t' Ottawa that Warry Hilliams took me to wonst! Why, say, do youse think any o' them is in it with a hound chorus, th' deep bass ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... interrupted the other, blowing a ring of smoke. "Unlimited power and so on. Looks very nice, and all. Only, it can't be done. Air's too big, too fluid, too universal. Human powers can't control it, any more than the ocean. Talk about monopolizing the Atlantic, if you will, Flint. But for ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... have been to see Uncle Toney. Did he give you any of his stories? Like all old persons, he loves to talk about his younger days." ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... you must not talk about your premises. I cannot allow such a place as this to be dignified ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... narrow streaks of specialized knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about. Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... pay them to the last farthing to-morrow. How dare they worry you about such trifles? They shall be paid to-morrow, but they shall lose a customer. Now, don't let's talk about it any more. Come out for a walk. No carriage! Well, we'll take the car to the Deer Park, it will cheer ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... think so,' returned Dora; 'but I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment—I am always a silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly—to talk about Jip. He has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't you, Jip? And I couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a little ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... of course when I got back to where I was I'd just skipped one of them each time! Yes, sir! I had made that proposal in THREE sections—a part to each girl, winding up with the mother! No explanation was possible, and I left Simla next day. Naturally, it wasn't a thing they could talk about, either!" ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... necessity interrupted. Groups of people eating and drinking congregated round the tables. The men mostly discussed various phases of the game; there was so little else for idlers to talk about these days. No comedies or other diversions, neither cock-fighting nor bear-baiting, and abuse of my Lord Protector and his rigorous disciplinarian laws ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... would be the richest book in the world in materials—but figures to me are so many ciphers, and only put me in mind of children that say, an hundred hundred hundred millions. However, it has made me learned enough to talk about Mr. Sykes and the Secret Committee,(82) which is all that any body talks of at present, and yet Mademoiselle Heinel(83) is arrived. This is all I know, and a great deal too, considering I know nothing, and yet, were there either truth or lies, I should know them; for one hears every thing ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... I began these letters with the purpose of explaining the nature of the requirements of justice first, and then those of gentleness, but I allowed myself to be led into that talk about the theaters, not only because the thoughts could be more easily written as they came, but also because I was able thus to illustrate for you more directly the nature of the enemy we have to deal with. You do not perhaps know, though I say this diffidently ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... honest to judge soundly and to act rightly Her present Serene Idiot, as she styles the Prince Borghese Hero of great ambition and small capacity: La Fayette How many reputations are gained by an impudent assurance How much people talk about what they do not comprehend If Bonaparte is fond of flattery—pays for it like a real Emperor Indifference about futurity Indifference of the French people to all religion Invention of new tortures and improved ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... out a locker and they fell to. But when they had eaten, Fox taught Hallblithe what he should do in the hall that night, as shall be told hereafter. And then, with much talk about many things, they wore away the day in that ancient cup of the seething rock, and a little before dusk set out for the hall, bearing with them Hallblithe's gear bundled up together, as though it had been wares ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... Christ; but He did not mean that His Church was to stand apart from the world, and let it go its own way. It is a bad thing for both when little Christian coteries gather themselves together, and talk about their own goodness and religion, and leave the world to perish. Clotted blood is death; circulated, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... don't talk about being faint it will go off. Faintness is such a queer thing that to think of it is to have it. Let us talk as we were talking before—about your young man and other indifferent matters, so as to divert ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... night's toil. If they had been like some of us they would have said, 'Oh! I have been working hard all the night. I cannot possibly do any more this morning.' 'I am so very busy with my business all the week, that it is perfectly absurd to talk about my teaching in a Sunday-school.' That was not their spirit at all. No matter how they had to rub their eyes to get the sleep out of them, they just bundled the nets into the boat once more, pushed her down the strand, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Pinelli announce six matinees of Chamber Music every Wednesday, beginning the day after tomorrow. The audience will be more numerous this year than formerly. People are beginning to talk about these matinees in the aristocratic salons in which it is often de bon ton not to ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... at the Rue de St. Antoine," he answered. "The housekeeper said that she had heard you talk about dining at one of these ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... length, "are in many instances the close relatives of harmless compounds that represent the intermediate steps in the daily process of metabolism. There is much that I might say about protein poisons. However, that is not exactly what I want to talk about—at ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... your room," went on Percy nervously, "and don't talk about it here. I don't want anybody to know that I am owing ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... the stage, energetically working the strings of the figures, when, without any warning, the stage front gave way, and we (still energetically working the figures) were thrown right into the auditorium. Talk about tumbling head over heels! Why, words would only belittle this part of our "performance." Suffice it to say that the wreckage just cleared the front seat, on which the Vicar and his good lady and ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... we have been hungry time and again; if ever we have gone a few days on short rations we are quite sure of it; this man had sounded the height and depth and stretched the length and breadth of it, and none of the rest of us really know what hunger means. I tried to get him to talk about it, but he said he wanted to forget it. He said he was ashamed to think of some of the things he had done and of some of the terrible thoughts that had come to him, and I pressed him no more. I have always felt that, even in its last hideousness of cannibalism, only ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... lessons read in the thousand churches on every Sunday of the year are practically meaningless to the hearers. These old men, with their sheep and goats and wives, and their talk about God, are altogether out of our ways of thought, in fact as far from us—as incredible or unimaginable, we may say—as the neolithic men or the inhabitants of another planet. They are of the order of mythical heroes and the giants of ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... discussion is throwing us into metaphysical researches, which I wish to avoid. It will be sufficient to you that you may console yourself for not being able to comprehend it, seeing that the most profound thinkers, who talk about the creation or the eduction of the world from nothing, have no ideas on the subject more precise than those which you form to yourself. As soon, Madam, as you take the trouble to reflect thereon, you will ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... interest, since we know, on the evidence of his sister, that such was the tenor of Ibsen's private talk about ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... that it is very unfashionable nowadays to talk about 'salvation' as man's need. The word has come to be so worn and commonplace and technical that many men turn away from it; but for all that, let me try to stir up the consciousness of the deep necessity that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... his instinct; children's books on natural history abound with feats that do the greatest credit to his prowess as a pilgrim. I do not attach much importance to these stories: they come from casual observers, uncritical folk given to exaggeration. It is not everybody who can talk about animals correctly. When some one not of the craft gets on the subject and says to me, 'Such or such an animal is black,' I begin by finding out if it does not happen to be white; and many a time the truth is discovered in the converse proposition. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre |
