"Smithereens" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... going to smithereens, as if a charge of dynamite had been exploded in the midst of it. Busk is slowly fading away. Tyndall is, I fear, in a bad way, and I am very ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... stock, and the bell-mouthed barrel is filled nearly to the muzzle with powder and round bullets the size of buckshot. This formidable firearm is for hand-to-hand fighting on horseback, and at ten paces might easily be warranted to blow a man's head into smithereens. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... he blew her hypothesis to smithereens on his first appearance; for he was an Eton man, yet clearly he did not come within any of the three ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... in the old man's bosom at the age of eighty-five. Even then he was all for shouldering his gun once more and setting out with an Indian lad to explore the Rockies. His son persuaded him to give up the thought. "You're too old, Pa. If you fall over a cliff your bones would be broke to smithereens. Come and live with me. My house is safe. It's all built of stone. The Indians can't burn down a stone house." After much bickering Daniel finally heeded his son and went to live with him. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... mind," I said, "about his treatment of infinitives. He may split them all to smithereens if he likes. It's the monstrous nature of ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... saw of it—suited her and set her off, and, as she was different from Mrs. John, so was the house different from the polished, conventional abode of Mrs. John at Bedford Park. To George's taste it knocked Bedford Park to smithereens. In the parlour, for instance, an oak chest, an oak settee, an oak gate-table, one tapestried easy chair, several rush-bottomed chairs, a very small brass fender, a self-coloured wall-paper of warm green, two or three old engravings ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... newspaper knocked the paper-case down, and all the things tumbled out, so I picked this up, and thought I would see what Algernon would say to it, and then put it back again. Let me have it, papa, if he catches me, he'll tear it to smithereens.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or I'll smash you to smithereens!" said Tim, who, although his words were of such dire portent, spoke as gently as if he were seeking to quiet ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... think I am pulling for the shore but I am not. I am steering my little craft right out in the billows It may be dashed to smithereens, and it may come safely home again, but in any case, I'll have the consolation of the Texas cowboy that "I've done ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... big man. "Well, I'm beat all to smithereens," and his hand holding the stick dropped to his side. Jim stopped from sheer amazement, the roar dying in ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... the cook repeated. "It come right over the loud-speaker in the galley! They was chitter-chatterin' plottin' to blow us all to smithereens!" ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... clean ower th' breead flaik;—an' thear shoo stood grinning at him throo th' winder, an' he wor soa mad—he wuthered th' pan fair at her head;—he miss'd his aim an' knock'd th' canary cage to smithereens, th' cat gate th' burd, an' th' pan fell into th' churn. Nah, what wod ta think ov ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... tea fight out here. One German could have wiggled over the top here and stood in this doorway and captured all four of you single-handed, or he could have rolled a couple of bombs down that hole and blown all of you to smithereens. What's your aim in life—hard labour in a German prison camp or a nice little wooden cross out here four thousand miles from Punkinville? Why wasn't there any ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... that Wedza's warriors were completely bluffed by the resourceful B.-P.; they were driven out of their stronghold, and the stronghold itself blown into smithereens. During this attack Baden-Powell narrowly escaped death, a small party he was with being fired upon at close range by a number of the enemy hidden behind a ridge of rocks. "My hat," says B.-P., "was violently struck from my head as if ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... of August 4th, 1914, discovered MacTavish sitting on the wall of his pig-sty, his happy hunting prospects shot to smithereens, arguing the position out with the terrier. He must attend to this war, that was clear, but need he necessarily go back to the salt sea? Couldn't he do his bit in some other service? What about the Cavalry? That would mean galloping about Europe on a jolly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... evenly, "and I ain't going to see you backslide. Why, Arizona, you're one of the fastest-thinkin', quickest-handed gents that ever buckled on a gun, and here you are lying down like a kid that ain't never faced trouble before. Come alive, man. You and me are going to bust this ol' jail to smithereens, and when we get outside I'll blow your ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... so I reached over to the window ledge, picked up my cigarette, put it between my lips once more and struck a light, when again I distinctly got that impression. Oh! but I was tempted, so for fear I would weaken I got out of bed, and with my bare feet crushed the dirty weed all to smithereens. I slept soundly till morning, and woke up smelling the odor of tobacco-smoke. Mother, I want to tell you the strange part of it; the smell actually made me sick at my stomach. How do you account for that? To be sure, I'm very nervous, but nothing on earth could tempt ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... adding, "I tell you what it is, boys: I begin to think I wasn't quite so smart as I thought I was when I got back that coal oil for the widow. I wouldn't wonder a particle if it wasn't just that that decided Yetmore to come and blow my house to smithereens." ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... to intrust the firing of that gun to a bungling, thick-headed, stupid idiot of a fellow, who don't know muzzle from vent; and the wonder is that he didn't blow one of his majesty's liege subjects into smithereens." ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... to use those guns, too. Our engineering and pioneer corps at that time were non-existent. We had practically none. The Germans would put over a few shells during the day. They would level our sandbag breastworks and blow our frail shelters to smithereens. We had no dugouts and no communication trenches. With a shell of tremendous power they would rip up yards of our makeshift defenses and kill half a dozen of our boys. Sometimes we would groan aloud and pray to see a few German legs and arms fly to the four ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... way to change the hearts of most plutocrats is to hit them over the head with a two-by-four. Smug respectability is in the saddle, and it knows it's right. We'll get nowhere until we smash this iniquitous system to smithereens." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... little time to do it in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness of Mark Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met with the devil of an accident. A model of a statue which he had just finished with a desperate effort was smashed to smithereens on its way ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blown it to smithereens, just the same!" retorted the Poker. "It doesn't cost anything to ask a question now ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... Sada says Uncle has had another outburst. He still consents for her to come down here. Her beautiful ideals have been smashed to smithereens, and the fact that nothing has ever been invented that will stick them together, adds no comfort to the situation. Her disappointment is heart-breaking. I cannot make a move till I get her to myself and have a life-and-death talk with her. I am ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... faix, the great review finished me; for I got into that state of warlike feeling that I loaded me muskit five times widout firin', an' there was such a row round about that I didn't know the dirty thing had niver wint off till the fifth time, when she bursted into smithereens an' wint off intirely. No wan iver seed a scrag of her after that. An' the worst was, she carried away the small finger of Bob Riley's left hand. Bob threw down his muskit an' ran off the ground howlin', so I picked the wipon up an' blazed away at the inimy; but, ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... ignorance! He isn't, and to prove it he is doing this thing. His messengers are speeding everywhere. Caterers from Newburgh have had hurry-up orders to provide a bountiful feast and old Heartsease Farm is to be the scene of an 'Infair' that will beat Dorothy's to—smithereens! I mean, begging her ladyship's pardon, in point of size. Leah is to be the guest of honor, since she cannot preside; but be sure she'll not disgrace her proud brother since at Dorothy's Party she has learned how harmless ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... the enemy were obliged to concentrate at Baikal for the defence of their own line of communication. Before they had made up their minds that they were already defeated a lucky Czech shot struck their store of dynamite and blew the station, their trains, and about three hundred of their men to smithereens. The remainder retreated off the line in a southerly direction, and after many days' pursuit were lost in the forests which form the chief barrier between Siberia and Mongolia, to emerge later on an important point on the ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... little bit under control, and then dive down again. You could hear the engine roar louder and louder as it came down. I never saw anything fall so fast. We saw it hit the ground among a lot of smashed-up buildings on the crest behind us. It went right over and flew to pieces, all to smithereens.... ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... smithereens, and she cost me exactly eleven thousand five hundred and thirty-three dollars and nineteen cents! Oh, what a lot of money!" And the expression on his face was so painful that Dick felt inclined to laugh, solemn as the occasion was. But ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... guns pointed toward the dense ranks of the enemy, when, from right in front, a dense puff of smoke, a tearing of shot and shell through the trees, a roar from half a dozen cannon, hitherto unseen, and our brave battery was knocked into smithereens. Great limbs of trees, torn off by cannon shot, came down on horse and rider, crushing them to earth. Shot and shell struck cannon, upsetting them; caissons exploded them. Not a shot was fired ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney
... I think Father took it as an insult, not to himself, but to his calling, a deadly insult to his god of literature, and in what to me was a fine and noble and justifiable frenzy he smashed and kicked the door into "smithereens." I applaud; I'm glad he did it; he proved himself worthy of his chosen god. Mother no doubt cried. Poor demolished door—a small and material sacrifice indeed for the great god ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... again, the fingers were all awry, and the pins wouldn't fit in their places, and the pendulum swung crooked, and the whole thing bothered me so that I just laid it on the floor of the verandah, and gave it one big kick that sent it to smithereens. But don't mind me or the clock at all, master; just come inside, and we'll have a bit o' ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... had she; it was that of an angel, was the same. It was niver that I staid there a night coorting the same that she didn't smash her shillaleh to smithereens over me head. Do yees obsarve that?' asked Mickey, removing his hat, and displaying a scar that extended ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... resounded. Lupin jumped back: "Ah, you rascal, full in the heart! Have you been taking lessons? You've done for the Wise Man! Full in the heart! Smashed to smithereens, like a pipe at ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... put around the present "castle" (more properly, house). This was done some years ago, I was told by the butler, after a torchlight procession of a thousand enthusiastic admirers had come down from Liverpool and trampled Mrs. Gladstone's flowers into "smithereens." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... concern, walked off. Derrick strolled round the antiquated engine and rusty pump and chaff-cutters, then took off his coat, turned up his sleeves and proceeded to make a detailed examination; wondering why the worn boiler had not burst and blown the whole kit, and anyone who happened to be near, into smithereens. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... man walking in a suspected coal mine with a lighted torch, who at any moment might strike a chamber filled with the fatal gas, which coming in contact with the light, would have blown man and mine to smithereens. ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... our navy, and you do not. You speak of the 'Baltic fleet.' Now what will you say when I tell you that at one point on the Mississippi we have a line of gun-boats that would knock not only your Baltic fleet but all the rest of your fleets into smithereens, without ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... scarting randy! I'll teach you manners. That's a good three-halfpence Smashed into smithereens: and all for nothing. I've lammed a wench for less. I've half a mind To snap you like the stopple, you yackey-yaa! De'il rive your sark! It's long since I've had the price Of a clay in my pouch: and I'm half-dead ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... of these animals. It is not easy to comprehend how Colonel Markham's tahir could have fallen eighty yards—that is, 240 feet—to say nothing of the supplementary descent of forty-five feet further—without being smashed to "smithereens." But although we may hesitate to give credence to such an extraordinary statement, it would not be a proper thing to give it a flat contradiction. Who knows whether there may not be in the bones ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... breaking my pink alabaster vase," she announced. "She's an awful smasher with her duster—just goes surging ahead over our mantelpiece and sends our ornaments flying. Mary's Pompeii pots went to smithereens yesterday. Now, Signorina Anastasia, you won't find your towels in too big a hurry. I guess I've paid ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... big," said he, with a laugh, "and it won't require a very big bomb to blow him to smithereens. He will—" ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a fresh start, to ensure movement from stage to stage, there must be renewed awakenings of energy, vigorous revolutionary outbursts, which stimulate the will, brace the muscles, and blow the obstacle to smithereens. Our revolution of 1789 was one of these outbursts of heroic energy, dragging mankind out of the rut wherein it had become wedged, and compelling a fresh start. But as soon as the effort has been made and the chariot set in motion, mankind has been only too ready to stick ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... twelfth of July, when the Orange fever began to come on. (Our people at home in the County Down, as my father used to tell us, often found it so with otherwise decent Protestant neighbours.) He would come home from a lodge meeting some night, a little the worse for drink, and smash the Pope to smithereens. The wife was a sensible body, and knew it was no use interfering while the fit was on him. When she knew it had safely passed away, she would take King William to the pawnshop round the corner and get as much on him as would buy a new ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... again—we was pretty well occupied wonderin' how we was goin' to feed an' clothe 'em all, let alone havin' pictures of 'em. Then there's the wax flowers on the mantelpiece. I always trembled for fear one of the youngsters would knock 'em off an' break the glass shade to smithereens, but they never did. An' there's your Grandfather Gray's clock. I was a little disappointed at first because it had a brass face, 'stead o' bein' white with scenes on it, like they usually was—an' then it was such a chore, ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... Maud, as a rule, but he felt a need to shed a little gaiety, to extenuate the accident as far as possible, to turn it into a joke, so as to prevent his girls from being panic-stricken. He talked of heads smashed to a jelly, of legs in smithereens, of a bicyclist who had had not one, but both eyes caught in the chain. As for himself, when he was a small boy—that was in the time when they brought up artistes, real ones, mind you; not, as nowadays, on sugar ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... choked by a gigantic gooseberry, which had formed part of the cargo of a Greenland tramp torpedoed by an enemy submarine. The serpent was actually being stuffed when a bomb dropped by a Zeppelin blew it into infinitesimal smithereens, to the profound disappointment of the Professor and my daughter Anna, who has never been quite the same woman since. Permit me to ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various |
