"Nonsense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to be an old maid. No girl does. But it is time you stopped playing fast and loose with hearts. Now there's Ben. You know he's loved you this long while. And we all like you so. Last fall he quite gave up and went to see Jenny Willing. She'll make a good wife and she's a nice ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... "Nonsense," quoth Ambition, "'tis an old woman's fancy. This envious old witch would have you disappoint the king—the king, who would load ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... "Nonsense," said Ascott, laughing. "I beg your pardon," he added, seeing it was with her no laughing matter; "but I am so accustomed to be hard up that I don't seem to care. It always comes ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... a bother it is—yes, she acted according to her religion; and that was right. People that don't do that are not much. But he—draw that shirt back a little, Femke. The sleeve is hanging in the ditch—but he didn't believe in it, and said it was all nonsense. But when she died, and he saw all that was done for her—it was Father Jansen who was there. Of course you know him—he always walks with a black cane, but he never ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... if my husband was to hear of his being about to be tried, I know not what would be the consequence. If it can only be kept from his knowledge! God knows that he has suffered enough! But what am I saying? I was talking nonsense." ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... "Nonsense," said Moriarty; "when I spoke of danger, I meant such open danger as—in short, not such insidious lurking abomination as ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Another, less frequent, was, 'He—the aspirant to literary fame and emolument—can neither write nor spell English;' 'I wish they wouldn't send their trash to me' was an occasional prayer; 'Seems to me sheer nonsense;'—'What a waste of time and labour!'—'It is very provoking that people should attempt to write books who cannot write English,' were occasional reports. Of course many of his judgements were very different: 'A work of great interest which must have a large sale;' 'Secure this if you ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... nonsense with real disgust, Mrs. Mirvan saw my confusion, but was perplexed what to think of it, and I could not explain to her the cause, lest the Captain should hear me. I therefore proposed to walk; she consented, and we all rose; but, would you believe it? this man had the ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... within the last few years, but I want my son to succeed me in the office. But if this consul of their'n keeps up his objections, appeals, and his protests in this way, and finds such men as his honor the district-attorney to second him with his nonsense and his notions, folks of our business might as well move north ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... progress of polite literature in this island; and it was then found, that the immeasurable licentiousness, indulged or rather applauded at court, was more destructive to the refined arts, than even the cant, nonsense, and enthusiasm of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Mrs.[66]; to beware also of discoursing homly with anie servants. We sould keip both their for at a prudent distance. The Mr. of Ogilvy and I ware wery great. I know not what for a man he'el prove, but I have heard him speak wery fat nonsense whiles. ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... "What nonsense are you talking now? I tell you that it was she! It's only when I'm in the presence of a creature of Lupin's, trained and drilled by him, that I lose my head and behave so foolishly.... She now knows the whole story of the album.... I bet you ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... was Bob White. He was a tall, thin, singular-looking lad, about fifteen years old, with a pale face. When he first went to work in the mine some of the boys called him White Bob, in nonsense, and the name had ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... kind of exercise to stretch and supple your limbs—besides many other inconveniences which I will not pain you by mentioning—how tall should you have been, my dear sister?—answer, four feet nothing: but enough of nonsense.' ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... preferred Homo to a donkey. He would have felt repugnance to having his hut drawn by an ass; he thought too highly of the ass for that. Moreover he had observed that the ass, a four-legged thinker little understood by men, has a habit of cocking his ears uneasily when philosophers talk nonsense. In life the ass is a third person between our thoughts and ourselves, and acts as a restraint. As a friend, Ursus preferred Homo to a dog, considering that the love of a wolf is ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... angel do cry gert tears when you lets on like that, my Joan. Oh, gal, why won't 'e give ear to me, as have lived fifty an' more winters in the world than what you have? Why caan't 'e taste an' try what the Lard is? Drabbit this nonsense 'bout Nature! As if you was a fitcher, or an 'awk, or an owl! Caan't 'e see what a draggle tail, low-minded pass all this be bringin' 'e to? Yet you'm a thinkin' creature an' abbun done no worse than scores o' folks who be tanklin' 'pon harps afore the throne o' God this ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... "Nonsense, my dear, I'm as innocent as a babe. Mr. Davis was suffering from erysipelas, and I kept him in my house that night to relieve his pain. It will all blow over. I'm happy now that I have seen you. Ben will be up in a few days. You must return at once. You have no idea of the ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... hundred; and that the public mind is so harassed with new narrations of conspiracy, and fresh horrors every day, that people have as little real sense of what is just or unjust as men who talk in their sleep of what is sense or nonsense. I have borne, and borne with it—I have seen blood flow on the scaffold, fearing to thwart the nation in its fury—and I pray to God that I or mine be not called on to answer for it. I will no longer swim with the torrent, which honour and conscience call upon me ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... "Nonsense! What is it, after all, that they say about this young woman?" demanded the senior member of the party. "That she rides alone on horseback. If she were to ride with a groom, some one would be sure to say that he was her lover. They ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... by the fact that they are but recently married, prefer to travel in pairs, and always take the lead. Accordingly Henry and myself, incog. as far as my future subjects go, are free to indulge in occasional caresses and sweet nonsense-talk. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... Burney, or the feeling of Mackenzie, to fix my attention upon a domestic tale. But all that was adventurous and romantic I devoured without much discrimination, and I really believe I have read as much nonsense of this class as any man now living. Everything which touched on knight-errantry was particularly acceptable to me, and I soon attempted to imitate what I so greatly admired. My efforts, however, were in the manner of the tale-teller, not of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... "Nonsense!" he cried disapprovingly. "We will see about some other school presently. Would you like to take a walk with me? I'm tired of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... any right to take anything away from here. I remonstrate formally, with all my strength as a man, with all my authority as a father. Do you suppose I am going to let you drive my child into the street. No, indeed! Oh! no, indeed! Enough of such nonsense as that! Nothing more shall ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... ask me!" he cried passionately. "It would be sheerest nonsense in your eyes, I know. You would but laugh at ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... all nations, Eleanor Smith's and most of Mrs. Gaynor's songs, already mentioned, and the songs collected by Reinecke, called "Fifty Children's Songs," are excellent for this purpose. The old-fashioned nonsense songs, such as "Billy Boy," "Mary had a Little Lamb" and "Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle," may also have a pleasant and ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... little things we might do that seem mere trifles and nonsense to us, but mean a lot to her; that wouldn't be any trouble or sacrifice to us, but might help to make her life happy. It's just because we never think about these little things—don't think them worth thinking about, in fact—they never ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... taking his head between his hands, he assumed the grave attitude of a man who is having relations with the Muses. After a few minutes of this sacred intercourse, he had produced one of those strings of nonsense-verses which the libretti-makers call, not without reason, monsters, and which they improvise very readily as a ground-work for the composer's inspiration. Only Schaunard's were no nonsense-verses, but very good sense, expressing with sufficient clearness the inquietude awakened in his ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... telling me, darling," she said gently. "It is just as well that I should know what people say, even though it is nothing but idle gossip—idle gossip." She repeated the words with emphasis. "Run and find Scooter, sweetheart!" she said. "And put all this silly nonsense out of your dear little head for good! I must take baby to ayah now. By and by we will read a fairy-tale ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... eye, and voice, a reference from which he barred himself by the word "despite." As it happens, luckily for him, there is a word to refer to, so that his grammatical salvation is secured; but the result is sad nonsense. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... "Nonsense! there is but very little for you to do," said madam, "you have simply to walk into the church, upon the arm of the supposed bride's father. You will be masked, and no one will see your face until after all is over, and you have not a word ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a particle of coquettishness, or nonsense of any kind, about her, and she made no hesitation whatever about acknowledging, frankly yet modestly, the warmth of ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... signs we never contraried 'em at all, but just let 'em heave out any tale they could think up an' pretend 'at we believed it; an' hanged if I don't begin to suspicion that the' 's a heap o' truth in some o' their nonsense. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... sat erect and frowned in the direction of his companion. "Well, now, I suppose you are going to sulk. You make me ill! It's the best we can do, ain't it? Hire a cab and go look that fellow up on Park—What's that? You can't afford it? What nonsense! You are getting—Oh! Well, maybe we can beg some clothes of the captain. Eh? Did I see 'im? Certainly, I saw 'im. Yes, it is improbable that a man who wears trousers like that can have clothes to lend. No, I won't wear oilskins and a sou'-wester. To Athens? Of course not! ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... is actually done, as indicated by laboratory experiments. The psychologist experiments a great deal with the memorizing of nonsense material, because the process can be better observed here, from the beginning, than when sensible material is learned. Suppose a list of twenty one-place numbers is to be studied till it can be recited straight through. The learner may go at ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... peasants believed that with Austria's collapse there would arrive the Earthly Paradise, and in order to bring this about they ravaged a good many fine estates and set fire to various castles. They were going to stand no nonsense. At a place called Lubi[vs]ica in Croatia—where the 350 families lived in 260 houses—the landowner, out of the goodness of his heart, bestowed twenty "joch" of meadowland on the village in 1864. A law was passed which obliged ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... plenty about them," I said, "but it was all poetry and nonsense. You know well enough, Peter, that there's no such ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... with Captain Gary afore, did you?" Rucker regarded his junior with a peculiar smile. "I thought not. Well—I have. I'll give you a pointer. He'd rather send this ship to the bottom any time than stand any nonsense. That's him; and I'm sort ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... Helen dear," said Kitty, "that was only my schoolgirl nonsense. When I came back home I found how impossible it all was. But I must run back to the folks now. Won't you ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... nonsense, father; another five years will be soon enough to begin to think of such things. At any rate," she said with a laugh, "I am rid of Sweyn, for he can hardly expect me ever to love ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... "Nonsense, my little pigeon, you remain here," said the vicomte huskily, placing himself in front of the door, "and for each note you sing I will give ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... any such newfangled nonsense. It ain't none of a parson's business what the community does. You're hired, ain't you, an' paid to run the church? That's the end of it. We ain't goin' to have any mixin' of religion an' farmin' ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... of mind with impulses, thoughts, actions. Of the true liberty we are positively unable to comprehend anything, because we are not in possession of it. Whenever we hear it spoken of, we draw the words down to our own meaning, or briefly dismiss it with a sneer, as nonsense. With the knowledge of liberty, the sense of another world is also lost to us. Everything of this sort floats by like words which are not addressed to us; like an ash-gray shadow without color or meaning, which we cannot by any ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... irritation about the claim to sit in Parliament. Unopposed, the Catholic superstition may sink into dust, with all its absurd ritual and solemnities. Still it is an awful risk. The world is in fact as silly as ever, and a good competence of nonsense will always find believers."[50] That is the view of a strong and rather unscrupulous politician—a moss-trooper in politics—which Scott certainly was. He was thinking evidently very little of justice, almost entirely of the most effective means of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... "Nonsense, treachery!" Mrs. Grantham said indignantly; "Minnie is the nicest girl I know, and it would do Tom a world of good to have a wife to look after him. Why, he is thirty now, and will be settling down into a confirmed old bachelor before long. It's the greatest kindness we could do him, to take ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... himself quite happy and at home in the little drawing-room. The lame child came in and took a stool beside him. He stroked her head and talked nonsense to her in the intervals of holding forth to Julie on the changes necessary in some proofs of his which he had brought back. Lord Lackington, now quite himself again, went back to dreams, smiling over them, and quite unaware that the kitten had been slyly ravished from him. The little woman in black ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as if it were yesterday Nick Long telling me with bubbling ecstasy, shortly after he was engaged, that his lady-love had a clear, analytical mind, almost like a man's. "No nonsense about her," he said. "She sees things just as they are." I rather got the impression at the time that he intended thereby to insinuate gently but plainly that he was a far luckier dog than I who had married ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... folk-lore; it was something nearer and closer to the people themselves. They excited his curiosity, he envied their mode of life, admired their clannishness, delighted in their primitive customs. Their persistence in warring against the gentile appealed strongly to his instinctive hatred of "gentility nonsense"; and perhaps more than anything else, he envied them the stars and the sun and the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... time, my dear. Maitland has gone to Greenfields and we've several hours before us.... Look here, little woman, why don't you take a tumble to yourself, cut out all this nonsense, and look ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the horse Dahir, until all of the tribe of Fazarah and of the family of Zyad, felt their hearts swell with rage. "Do you hear him, brother?" said Haml to Hadifah; "come, that is enough," he added, turning towards Carwash. "All that you have said about Dahir is absolute nonsense—for at present there are no horses better or finer than mine, and those of ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... the Society for criticising his "Richard III." and in his Short Notes on his Life he wrote—"Foote having brought them on the stage for sitting in council, as they had done on Whittington and his Cat, I was not sorry to find them so ridiculous, or to mark their being so, and upon that nonsense, and the laughter that accompanied it, I struck my ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... nonsense, Georgy," I said gently, for through her jealousy I had the first glimpse, I fancied, of something like real love for me; "and I do not like to hear Helen's name bandied about in this way. You may be sure that she will stand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... catalogues from reaching him,' she said, 'but sometimes the postman slips in without my seeing him, and then he's sure to deliver one. Whenever Theophilus reads about any strange specimen, or any hybridising nonsense that nobody heard of when I was young, he seems to go completely out of his head, and the worst of 'em is,' she added," concluded the General, chuckling under his breath, "'there isn't a single pretty, sweet-smelling flower ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Where the devil have you been? This noise is still going on. Tell me what it is. No-dam-nonsense-now. Let's have it." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... "Nonsense," said Terry, with soothing calm. "It's only because you haven't motored for a long time that you imagine we're going fast. The motor's working well, that's all. We're crawling along at a miserable ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... entered, followed by her daughter, and they were duly presented to the Dombeys. There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... dusty from his long trip. The girl, dressed in some cool simple white stuff and seated in her easy wicker chair in the deep shade of the wide porch, made a picture wonderfully attractive to the man who had ridden all day in the scorching heat of the desert sun. Of course he must come in. What nonsense to talk of his appearance. He was not making a fashionable social call. The weary engineer dropped into a chair and gratefully accepted the glass ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... clergy in all ages had delivered up the rights and privileges of the people, preaching up the king's power, in order to govern him the more easily; and therefore they ought not to be suffered to meddle with politics. The earl of Anglesea owned the doctor had preached nonsense; but said, that was no crime. The duke of Leeds distinguished between resistance and revolution; for had not the last succeeded, it would have certainly been rebellion, since he knew of no other but hereditary right. The bishop of Salisbury justified resistance from the book of Maccabees; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... our own property at last. For the next sixty hours we'll be riding across our own front yard—and there aren't any keys and passwords and grips here, either—just a plain Almighty God with no nonsense about Him." ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... drew his prairie hat forward so that the brim shaded his pale eyes. He further shifted his reins into his left hand, and sat with his right on the butt of one of his weapons. Whatever was to come he was ready for it. One thing he had made up his mind to; he would stand no nonsense from anybody—certainly not from James ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... or hysterical nonsense in that room. The mother lay there quite peaceful, pain all gone—and she had had enough of it in her day. She was quite a beautiful woman, too, in a way. Fine eyes, remarkable eyes, splendidly firm mouth, showing great nerve, I should say. All her life, I understand, she lived ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... nonsense you can talk when you try to. . . . As for me I'm going down to the Brier Water to look into it. If there are any trout there foolish enough to bite at those ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Uncle Remus, however, had detected the presence of the little boy, and he allowed his song to run into a recitation of nonsense, of which the following, if it be rapidly spoken, will give a ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... (although, perhaps, partial to the subject,) want to talk more nonsense than the occasion warrants, and will pray you to cast your eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round of the papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of that wretched, fool-hardy ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thread of life of her aged father, and her mother requested them to come and take charge of the farm which was now theirs. They went. The old man had made money on the hills. They got the better of the broken china and of my black coat. Fortune broke in upon them. My cousin declared that omens were nonsense, and his wife added that she "really thought there was naething in them. But it was lang an' mony a day," she added, "or I could get your black coat and my mother's cheena ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... I do," Micky declared. He hated the despondency in her face; he felt a strong desire to see her smiling and happy. He rattled on, talking any nonsense that ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... his self-possession by an effort. "It is clear to me," he said calmly, "that your reason is unhinged. What is all this nonsense about death? There is nothing that will harm you except your own evil actions." He turned abruptly and strode out of the room with the firm and decided step of a man who has ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a great many books, and who never forgets anything she hears, had somehow gotten hold of my secret. It was this. There was a man who could repeat whatever he read once. One of his friends undertook to write something that he could not remember. So he wrote nonsense, and the man with the long memory failed to remember it. The nonsense, which I read when I was a boy, is, if I remember ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... his parents, and he should be punished. They meant him to be a priest, and raked and scraped every soldo to educate him. Now, just when he is at the point of being able to repay them, he makes up his mind that he has no vocation for the priesthood, and breaks their hearts by his ingratitude. It is nonsense to set one's will up so and have such scruples. Obedience is vocation enough for anything. There should be a prison where parents could put the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... to the Government for a balance due to the troops, and some other smaller matters for the Germans, and the press, &c. &c. &c.; so what with these, and the expenses of my suite, which, though not extravagant, is expensive, with Gamba's d—d nonsense, I shall have occasion for all the monies I can muster; and I have credits wherewithal to face the undertakings, if realised, and expect ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... "Nonsense!" echoed Pillichody. "I swear to you I am in earnest. By Cupid! I am ravished with your charms." And he would have seized her hand, but Patience hastily withdrew it; and, provoked at his impertinence, dealt him a sound box on ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... piece of "ingenious nonsense," that gem of biographical literature, the unique and veracious "Memoir of Liston," over which the lovers of wit and the lovers of Charles Lamb have had many a good laugh, was so great that Lamb was encouraged to try his hand at another theatrical memoir, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of the book, and, having read them, the worst enemy of lovers' garlands will not accuse Mr. Patmore of "putting stuff and nonsense into people's heads" ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... "Nonsense, friend Costal! How could we tell grains of gold from gravel or anything else in the midst of such darkness as there is down here. Besides, if I came away, it was only with the thought of returning again. We can come back in the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... "Nonsense! I don't believe even earwigs would care for it. Foolish, gaudy thing, uplifting its lanky neck as though to outdo its fellows! There ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... to retreat. Never does Science stop, step by step she wrests truth from error, and to say that she is bankrupt because she cannot explain the world in one word and at one effort, is pure and simple nonsense. If she leaves, and no doubt will always leave a smaller and smaller domain to mystery, and if supposition may always strive to explain that mystery, it is none the less certain that she ruins, and with each successive ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... with the railway officials. He was taking a quantity of Sphagnum moss in which to wrap the precious things, and they refused to let him carry it by passenger train. The station-master at Waterloo had never felt the atmosphere so warm, they say. In brief, this was a man who stood no nonsense. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... "Nonsense. Badshah wasn't mad," he replied. "It was just as I guessed when you first told me of these fits of ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... moved Mr Napper to talk his farrago of philosophical nonsense. It did not take long for Mavis to see that Miss Jennings was much impressed by the flow of many-syllabled words which issued, without ceasing, from the lawyer's clerk's lips. The admiration expressed in the girl's eyes incited Mr ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... "It's sheer nonsense," said Beam, turning away from the window and throwing himself into a chair; "why should an old fellow like Tippengray take up all the spare time of that girl? She doesn't need to learn anything. From what she has said to me I judge that she knows ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... grand piano, with her arms waving as she sang, repeating, by the expression of her eyes, the question she had asked and to which she had received no answer, she was singing the verses she considered nonsense with as much point as if she had understood them, thanks to the hints given her by Madame Strahlberg, who was playing her accompaniment, when the entrance of a servant, who pronounced her name aloud, made a sudden interruption. "Mademoiselle ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "What's the matter with you? Oh, you, is it?—Dawes! Of course, Dawes. I never expected anything better from such a skulking hound. Come, this sort of nonsense won't do with me. It isn't as nice as lolloping about the hatchways, I dare say, but you'll have to go on, my ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... greater torment than being obliged to speak continually without time for recollection. I know not whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint; but if I am obliged to speak, I infallibly talk nonsense. What is still worse, instead of learning how to be silent when I have absolutely nothing to say, it is generally at such times that I have a violent inclination; and, endeavoring to pay my debt of conversation ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us talk business. Have you been to the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Ethan, blushing beneath his smutty face. "I like her, and after what we went through out West, I don't think it is very ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... or, if you object to the word, I will say love. You have known that I have not loved my cousin, and that I have loved this other man. That is not nonsense; that at any rate is a stern reality, if there be anything real in ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... "Nonsense," answered the doctor. "I have no patience with this false sentiment. Stand still, Lightning, and be thankful you ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Foreland; so are a great many other words. But I digress. I only put in these words to show you in case you had any dissolving doubts remaining upon the matter, that the kind of stuff you read is very often all nonsense, and that you must not take things for granted merely because they are printed. I have watched you doing it from time to time, and have been torn between pity and anger. But all that is neither here nor there. This ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... if he shared the contempt that some people expressed for bullets. He and Mr. Gleeson both said, "Anyone who talks of contempt for bullets is talking nonsense. Bullets mean death at every corner of the street, and death overhead and flying limbs and unspeakable sights." All these men went back. All of them behaved quietly and like gentlemen, but one man asked a friend of his over and over again if he ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... Inna, give and take; it's that as smooths life's rough places. Master Oscar has nothing to give his uncle for all he's doing for him, but his will—letting go that foolish nonsense about the sea. He ought to give up the sea and take to the farm—that would be his giving and taking; and his uncle would give him the farm, and take his—his obedience to his wishes, as a sort of harvest of love after all the years ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... use electric motors, and other people had that idea long before me. I have used an electric brake, using the motor itself as a brake—that is, as the car runs down a grade by momentum, it generates a current, but this current cannot be used for recharging a battery. It is utter nonsense to talk about that unless we have a steady grade four or five miles long. The advantages are very small indeed, and the complications which would be introduced by employing automatic cut-outs, governors, and so on, would counterbalance anything that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... cried a harsh voice, and a tall, broad-shouldered man elbowed himself through the crowd and walked up to the count. "Count Pueckler," he said, menacingly, "if you continue talking about resistance, and other nonsense of that kind, you are a miserable demagogue, and the assassin of those who believe your high-sounding words.—Listen to me, citizens of Breslau. I am secretary of the commission of provisions, and do you know whither I have been ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... "That's nonsense! But your conscience and your sense of honour always were bugbears, Christopher, and always will be. They bored me as a child, and they bore ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... man who does not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, of course that is nonsense, but to those of us who do see in Him the manifested incarnate God, there ought to be no difficulty in accepting this as the simple literal force of the words before us, that in every soul where faith, howsoever ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... duty of your sex, as it is of mine, to establish newspapers, write books, and hold public meetings for the promotion of the cause of temperance. The current idea, that modesty should hold women back from such services, is all resolvable into nonsense and wickedness. Female modesty! female delicacy! I would that I might never again hear such phrases. There is but one standard of modesty and delicacy for both men and women; and so long as different standards are tolerated, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... are subject to decay, And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was call'd to empire and had govern'd long; In prose and verse was own'd, without dispute, Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute. This aged prince, now flourishing in peace And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with business, did at length debate To settle the succession of the ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... her. There is something very lovable about her, in spite of all her nonsense. I believe, as she says herself, that she isn't half as silly as she sounds. She's a dear, kissable baby—and I don't know that she'll ever really ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head or tail of it. It seems plain enough to read, but makes nonsense. Come over here and see ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "'Nonsense! thy heart is dead with fear, thou seest double;' and I bent forward over the edge of the surrounding fence, ...
— Hunter Quatermain's Story • H. Rider Haggard
... the dominating influence of that spirit, from which certain pernicious tendencies, according to his own convictions, proceeded and had to be combated. Thus it was in this instance. It was all visionary nonsense, nay, sheer devilry, and be attacked it in language of proportionate violence. From Zwingli a different attitude was to be expected, from the amicable titles of his treatises and the personal correspondence with Luther which he himself ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "That's all nonsense about the Cornishmen being giants, Josh," said Will, as he rapidly passed the long lengths of net through his hands, so that they should lie smooth in the hold, ready for shooting again that night without twist or tangle. "Old writers were very fond ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... blacking the eyes of six gamekeepers, who had been set upon her by some noble lord or another. Then, while the ale sparkles with a richer colour as the evening lights grow deeper, the talk gets naturally upon “lords” in general, gentility nonsense, and “hoity-toityism” as the canker at the heart ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... noon at the lower brook. Fancy a house-reared man a convert to fishing when past threescore! Evan insists that it is because, being above all things consistent, he wishes to appear at home in the company of father's cherished collection of Walton's and other fishing books. Father says, "Nonsense! no man can ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... ejaculated. "Nonsense, man; you must be dreaming. Why, I could no more raise ten thousand pounds than ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... might bring the loom any day, for there was to be no nonsense at her wedding; they would drive to the minister's in the Glen by themselves, and she would be home in time to milk the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... "she's not well. She fell off a horse last night, and there's something gone wrong inside her head. I s'pect something's cracked there. She's talking a lot of nonsense. We has runned away, and we is desperate hungry. Can you give us a drink ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... a one-act farce going to be acted at the Haymarket; but when? is the question. 'Tis an extravaganza, and like enough to follow "Mr. H." "The London Magazine" has shifted its publishers once more, and I shall shift myself out of it. It is fallen. My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense for the playhouses, to eke out a somewhat contracted income. Tempus erat. There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when the Muse, &c. But I am now ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... how things are going to be, nor whether the Achaeans are to return with good success or evil. How dare you gibe at Agamemnon because the Danaans have awarded him so many prizes? I tell you, therefore—and it shall surely be—that if I again catch you talking such nonsense, I will either forfeit my own head and be no more called father of Telemachus, or I will take you, strip you stark naked, and whip you out of the assembly till you go blubbering back to ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... exclamation equivalent to PSHAW or NONSENSE] says I, making light of it, to see what he would go on to next; 'your honour's joking, to be sure; there's no compare between our poor Judy and Miss Isabella, who has ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... nonsense she was already prepared for a variety of inventional talk from him. As they started down from the pass in single file, she leading, the sun sank behind the hills, leaving the Eternal Painter, unhindered by a furnace glare in the centre of the canvas, to paint with ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... flush deepened to crimson; but Mr. Grew checked his reply with a decisive gesture. "Here he sits, with all your young nonsense still alive in him. Don't you see the likeness? If you don't, I'll tell you the story ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... "Nonsense!" he said in a mirthful undertone. "How can I go in and win, as you say? What am I to do? I can't go up to that window and speak to her,—she might take me for ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... "Nonsense!" Then he thought a moment. There came back to him a picture of those English gentlewomen from among whom he had selected his wife, quiet-voiced, hard-riding, high-colored girls, who could hunt all day and dance all night. Elinor was a pale ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "What nonsense!" cried Gissing. "The smell of wet, healthy puppies? Nothing is more agreeable. You are cold-blooded: I don't believe you are fond of puppies. Think of their wobbly black noses. Consider how pink is the little cleft between their toes and ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley |
