"The absurd" Quotes from Famous Books
... own fate—that the affair thus plaintively voiced by her mother was in effect a family crisis of the first magnitude. She was stirred anew to anger and revolt against a life so precarious and sordid as to be threatened in its continuity by the absurd failure of a stove, when, glancing at her sister, she felt a sharp pang of self-conviction, of self-disgust. Was she, also, like that, indifferent and self-absorbed? Lise, in her evening finery, looking occasionally ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... attention is paid to the protection of heronries. Not to know a hawk from a heronshaw (the former name for a heron) was an old adage, which arose when the diversion of heron-hawking was in high fashion. It has since been corrupted into the absurd vulgar proverb, "not to know a hawk from a handsaw!"[9] The flesh of the heron is now looked upon as of little value, and rarely if ever brought to market, though formerly a heron was estimated at thrice the value of a goose, and six times the price ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... suddenly, "have you ever thought what would happen if you stopped making petticoats?" She did not answer. "It illustrates," he went on, "the absurd importance we attach to ourselves. The race would get itself clothed somehow, even as Church and State will go on, although they fail to settle that question of the swallowing on ... — Quisante • Anthony Hope
... wife, above all for such an artist as this outrageous fellow, impassioned, uproarious and exuberant, who, with his nose in the air and bristling moustaches, rushed through life defiantly flaunting the eccentric and whirlwind-like name of Heurtebise,* like a challenge thrown down to all the absurd conventionalities and prejudices of the bourgeois class. How, and by what strange charm had the little woman, brought up in a jeweller's shop, behind rows of watch chains and strings of rings, found the means of captivating ... — Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... been told to assure him, in case they ever managed to locate the elusive Roland, that he should not worry because of not being able to comply with the absurd conditions of Uncle Jerry's ridiculous will; because she had enough of this world's goods for both, and she meant to leave it all to him, Roland; so she begged him to come back to her, and live his own life again, even ... — At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
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