Sentence Examples:
For we were born the masters of a leisured, ordered world; and by a tragic quirk of destiny were thrust into a quite new planet, where we were for a while the inferiors, and after that just the competitors of yesterday's slaves.
Let there be some quirk or weakness elsewhere in the chain of hormones, and instead of the successful woman, behold the spinsters, the maiden aunts, the prudes and cranks who never satisfactorily adapt themselves in society.
His eyes were puffy and red, and his cheeks were mottled, and his lips were fevered and had lost any sign of a humorous quirk at the corners.
And as he rode, the face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him somber and dull; and his mouth, that had lost utterly the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners, was bitter, and straight, and hard.
Helen May looked at him, saw the dancing light in his eyes and a mirthful quirk of his lips, and blushed while she smiled.
Their gibes and quirks are all printed in my edition, and are better reading than the book itself.
Dana was the thorough-going type of man, not overbalanced and erratic, without quirk or quibble of temperament.
His gray eyes were deceivingly candid, and his voice was pleasant with a little, humorous drawl that matched well the quirk of his lips when he talked.
Why should this new generation of women be so streaked with quirks and oddities, so knobby with ideas, when they might be just as helpless and charming as those of his own day, and give themselves blindly to the guidance of astute men like himself?
Certainly in the mental composition of every one of us is some quirk, some vagary, some dear senseless delusion, avowed or private.
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.
The old Franciscan's eyes were watery with sleepiness, but the corners of his mouth quirked with humor under his white mustache.
Man has the faculty of putting up ornamental trimmings on his house, and there is no spot the sparrow chooses more willingly in which to build his nest than the ornamental quirks and cornices of man's architecture.
Instead, his lips straightened until the wistful quirk at the corners disappeared into a straight line and his eyes smoldered ominously.
The full, curved lips were shaded by a short, blond mustache, but that hirsute covering did not conceal the cruel quirk at the lips' corners.
A normally sane, normally well integrated person would require almost as much work to put a permanent quirk in as removing such a quirk would be in a zany.
The brainwashing techniques and hypnotism can introduce such quirks temporarily, but as soon as a normally sane person regains his balance, the quirks tend to fade away.
The quips and quirks force on us the fact that there is but little originality in the human mind, and this was substantially the reflection of Rounders as he turned an indifferent ear to the wearisome wit.
Either I must throw overboard all my old values of money and look upon it as something to be flung about wastefully, or I must throw overboard my comradeship with these men whose peculiar quirks made them like strong drink.
Read with care the Code Frederick, and inform yourself of the good effects of it in those parts of, his dominions where it has taken place, and where it has banished the former chicanes, quirks, and quibbles of the old law.
Where were his gibes, his playful fancies, his quirks and rare conceits, the droll!
By the way, I know you prefer tequila, one of your odd quirks, but there was no time to acquire any.
Thanks to a peculiar quirk of Shinto, which dictates that certain of these wood-and-thatch shrines be dismantled and built anew every two decades, it is still possible to see these lovely structures essentially as they were two millennia ago.
By some quirk of atavism, a certain portion of that early self's language had come down to him as a racial memory.
Again the quaintly humorous quirk of the lips.
Many, the quirks and villainous wiles I owe them!
It is the secret of all great actors, and enables them to publish a volume of meaning in a glance or a catch in the voice, a quirk of the lips or a twiddling of the fingers.
Quip, quirk, point, odd thought, odd turn, affected witticism.
When, fifteen minutes later, Sim returned, closing the door smartly behind him, Arnold asked with a droll quirk, which I alone perceived, "Well, my friend, what did you gather during your stay in yonder?"
The quirks of the melody are not unlike those of very old English ballads, and some native composer with originality should be able to expand their deep, bold, primitive ululations into richer, lasting forms.
The letter is especially fitted for quick portraiture, for flashing forth a face in an adjective, for touching off a character in the quirk of a phrase.
If a few males were born from time to time, by an atavistic quirk of nature, they could be exhibited as curiosities, as we now exhibit hermaphrodites.
By one of those quirks which make human beings as interesting as they are, Mustache Maude, the proprietor of many of Winona's most scarlet institutions, owned a good library and was an expert needlewoman.
I now come upon that swarm of technicalities, devices, quirks, and quibbles, which from the beginning have infested this proceeding.
And whatever Joan had told her about me ... and despite everything she'd told the doctor ... she'd been a nurse long enough to know that even a woman who has been married to a man for many years can never be sure he won't develop some odd, wild quirk of character which will turn him into a murderer overnight.
My homecoming was not developing quite as I planned, but I put this down to womanly, if not exactly maidenly, quirks.
I wish the world to know his little quirks and turns, his fancies and his whimsies.
As for the quirk in human nature that shows great gratification at the sight of a man betting on something where he is bound to be the loser: in inelegant language, this relates simply to the universal impulse to laugh at a "sucker."
I understood the queer and notional quirks of undertows.
In most instances they are overloaded with ornament, and many of them disfigured with quirks and quibbles, and all the vagaries of later German art.
Approaching each other at an aggregate speed of a hundred and fifty miles an hour the two biplanes swerved discreetly, for both were steered by quirks who took no risks.
With what store of "quips and quirks, and wreathed smiles?"
If their forefathers ascended the mountain with streaming eyes and unshod feet, they, at least, went up on stout wheels, and with many a song and quirk, though perfectly innocent withal.
How readily one falls into the moralist's speech, and how your dear lips would quirk at that tone from me, dearest.
There is something curiously compelling about its minor key with the little quirks and quavers.
There was the same quirk at the corner of the mouth, the same humor in the strong face, not so ruddy now; and strangely enough the eyes were neither guarded by spectacles, nor were they shrunken, glazed, or diseased, so far as could be seen.
His insight and unflinching intelligence are both needed, however, and it is no longer necessary to warn the student against his quirks and solecisms.
The drummer's good-natured face sagged in a mirthless quirk.
She was perusing his face while he puzzled over the unaccountable quirk in the dictator's amorousness.
His manner was full of quirks and quips and eccentricities, waving his umbrella and gesticulating strangely, with a great deal of action.
Some quirk inside my head made me venturesome.
He had all a sailor's vindictiveness against the quips and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last aim and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice.
Being fond of power, and having discovered (as he supposed) that the man who knows the most quirks in law has the greatest quantity of power over his simple and ignorant neighbors, he was a tolerably laborious and successful student of these quirks.
They had found to a great extent, as most young couples find in some measure, that they possessed in common many fixed ideas and curiosities and odd quirks of mind; they were essentially companionable.
She said, quirking an eye to the motorman, who quirked back.