How To Use Rueful In A Sentence
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He has a habit, he admits ruefully, of crocking himself.
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Hats bowl away, coats fly open, skirts cling, umbrellas flype themselves: and their owners, grotesquely running, grabbing, snatching, struggling, are consumed with rueful and involuntary mirth.
Try Anything Twice
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A small gas - jet furnished sufficient light for so rueful a corner.
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Her big brown eyes were looking into mine with apology, her lips were outlining a somewhat rueful and shy half-smile.
A Glimpse of Love
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And, sure enough, there was Kennedy, with rueful face and a maudlin romaunt about a moonlit meeting with a swarm of painted Sioux, over which the stable guard were making merry and stirring the trooper's soul to wrath ungovernable.
A Daughter of the Sioux A Tale of the Indian frontier
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I told her about my coffee date with my neighbour last week, and we analysed with our usual ruefulness the mixture of mellowness and awkwardness that arose.
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Just rueful reflection on the one that got away.
Times, Sunday Times
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A small, weary, rueful smile.
Times, Sunday Times
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Gluttony, Orson Welles once said ruefully, is not a secret vice and unhappily the solution to weight loss is also blindingly obvious - whatever you eat, eat less.
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Those who have crossed him describe the experience ruefully.
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Otherwise you could end up feeling very rueful.
The Sun
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His rueful recollections shed light on an often-perplexing artistic career, one that has left him looking distinctly battle-weary.
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He looked up and found Alex staring at him, a strange, almost rueful grin on his face.
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When it was finally belching smoke to his satisfaction, he looked at me, and in his eye was what I can only describe as a rueful twinkle.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
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Folk and country, romance and ruefulness, innocence and experience are all conjoined in their bewitching vocal harmonies.
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He was to live, it appeared, abominably worried, he was to live consciously rueful, he was to live perhaps even what a scoffing world would call abjectly exposed; but at least he was to live saved.
The Finer Grain
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My command, Jon Snow reflected ruefully, as much a ruin as it is a stronghold.
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He looks rueful, just for a instant.
Times, Sunday Times
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He looked at me, then twitched his ears in rueful laughter and moved back a couple of steps until all I could see of him was his silhouette against the grey nimbus surrounding the moon.
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He shook his head and gave me a rueful smile.
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When we last heard from them, they were waxing ruefully nostalgic about their chemically wasted youth.
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Put into rhyme, it would fit into many of the rueful, hortatory songs of the '60s, when truthtelling was praised both as a moral medicine and for its beauty.
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He allows himself only a rueful laugh.
Times, Sunday Times
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I'm a gey auld-farrant-looking dear, I doubt," said Nanny, ruefully.
The Little Minister
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Huston merely strolls around on the sidelines, puffing a cigarillo and looking rueful.
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A painful memory, injected with some still-rueful mirth recently, as I reread the Larry's memoir and beheld the dues he had paid and the jangled trip he had taken to find a suitably meaningful professional niche.
David Murray: Working, in Chicago: An Emotional Guide for New Graduates
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Brothers have been the ruin of Welsh princedoms through all ages," Cadfael observed ruefully.
His Disposition
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Just rueful reflection on the one that got away.
Times, Sunday Times
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Heins,38 Roald commented ruefully in response, deciding wisely that to be placatory was the most sensible course of action.
Storyteller
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There is a rueful self-deprecation at play here, at odds with a quiet desperation.
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In his most famous stage work, he took a ruefully affectionate voyage around his father.
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Yet, as he travels from airport to morgue, waiting room to railway carriage, these bland modern spaces seem to tease out of him at last a rueful sense of guilt and blame.
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Well, there was no denying that, Cory thought ruefully, assimilating the pale blonde hair, artfully coiffed, the im maculate maquillage, the close fitting dove-coloured trouser suit that showed off her mother's slim, toned figure to the best advantage, and the fur jacket draped casually round her shoulders.
Rome's Revenge
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Then, turning to ride back into Oakland, a thought came to him that made him grin ruefully as he muttered: And now it's up to me to make good and buy that blamed quarry.
Chapter XIII
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Dick standing at the gate, ruefully contemplating their name -- her name -- in juxtaposition with "dressmaker," crossed her mind directly.
Not Like Other Girls
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Morrison and MacLachlan play their dissonance not for guffaws but for rather rueful observational comedy.
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She will never reach the age when the tumults of young adulthood can be looked back upon with rueful sympathy and without anger and vengefulness.
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He shook his head slowly, with a rueful smile on his face.
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However, a rueful subordinate describes him as "bloodless" - and, certainly, his fame as the late John Paul II's "enforcer" was not unearned.
The Guardian World News
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Today, as she tends her garden in a retirement community, Brevard considers her glamorous past with a mix of ruefulness and pride.
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He allows himself only a rueful laugh.
Times, Sunday Times
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Such is the nature of our intimate, carking, rueful relationship with William Holden, on the surface one of the Hollywood century's typical all-purpose leading men, but beneath it the keeper of poisoned secrets, and a living embodiment of America's postwar self-doubt and idealistic failure.
William Holden--noir hero?
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A small, weary, rueful smile.
Times, Sunday Times
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Reckless youth makes rueful age.
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Carefully dressed in the very worst of taste from his scarfpin to his boots, he had evidently just been too carefully shaved, for there were scratches on his wide, ludicrous face, and his smile was as rueful as a clown's.
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921
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`I made a big mistake,' he said ruefully
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Priscilla, in rueful remembrance of many trips to the dressmaker's.
Just Patty
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She thought ruefully of the cigarette butt, and of Johnny's small handful of apple tree leaves.
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Those stairs must have been a little more challenging than I thought, he ruefully admitted to himself.
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He turned away with a rueful laugh.
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Puzzled and alarmed, shaking his head ruefully as he recalled the carouse of the silent, he hobbled down the mountain as fast as he might for the grip of the rheumatism on his knees and elbows, and entered his native village.
Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 01: the Hudson and its hills
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Later, when he addressed a group of media people, it was in a reflective, rueful, almost confessional mode.
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Cuomo's voice, too, has changed over the years, losing some of its hangdog kickability and gaining faint echoes of Roy Orbison's ruefulness, as ‘The Other Way’ hints.
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Glass shards showered down on his cat that meowed ruefully at him and sulked away.
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It's all organic, Moss says, shrugging ruefully at the almost clichéd expression, but in the end, amongst the schizoid existence, the fear and the joy, Moss is a foot soldier in a war.
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Where another child would have been punished for the same stunts he pulled, his cheeky familiarity often earned him little more than soft chuckles and rueful shakes of the aged heads.
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But the more I thought about the matter, the more my feelings turned to ruefulness.
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These are the moments at which he recalls ruefully that the great merit of such and such a small case, the merit for his particular advised use, had been precisely in the smallness.
The Awkward Age
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He can still sing, but he now misses notes like older people miss buses, and looks rueful when they pass him by.
The Times Literary Supplement
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Common sense rarely rules markets—as money managers ruefully admit.
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Though given to bouts of rueful depression himself, he could only burlesque the spectacle of an artist's self-congratulatory struggles.
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Mrs.St. Pierre Lawrence knew enough, at all events, Colville reflected, rather ruefully, to disillusionise a schoolgirl, much more a woman of the world, knowing good and evil.
The Last Hope
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He recalls those times now with rueful recognition but no great regret.
Times, Sunday Times
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She thought ruefully of the cigarette butt, and of Johnny's small handful of apple tree leaves.
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A small, weary, rueful smile.
Times, Sunday Times
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There is a quality of self-directed ruefulness or self-causation.
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Now, they're barely a separate category in Netflix and, if you order an old-fashioned "oater" from Netflix, it usually triggers some rueful "sorry, but this will take more time" email as Netflix desperately taps inventories scattered across the country.
Information Today News Breaks
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To-night, remembering Bubbles 'words, he gave a careless, rueful thought to the question of how Varick, who was always generous about money, must be cheated -- "rooked" was the expression the doctor used in his own mind -- by these job servants who were here, so his host told him, just for the one month.
From out the Vasty Deep
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Lucy wasn't sure what jarred her most — the rueful note of empathy in his voice or hearing her Christian name caressed by his devilish tongue.
Thief Of Hearts
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An older and rueful prime minister may reflect that some of the optimism felt on that spring day in 1997 is still around, and maybe he can take some credit for that.
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By the time the final klaxon sounded to end round five, St-Pierre cut a frustrated and rueful victor, while Hardy walked away with a smile and much to be proud of.
Elliot Worsell: In Defense of Takedown Defense
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He looks rueful, just for a instant.
Times, Sunday Times
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Louise ruefully confessed she rarely tunes in to watch television these days.
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The name clouded his face again, he gazed ruefully into the satisfactory glow he was producing.
The Leper of Saint Giles
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‘I feel as though you're blackmailing or bribing me,’ I said ruefully.
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Then, pint in hand, I make my way over to Clem with a rueful grin, preparing to tell him about my encounter with Don and Len.
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The island's startling natural beauty can be a rueful reminder of what once was, up and down the Caribbean archipelago.
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I have a quick temper which can flare up and be over in seconds, which makes me rueful, but at least provides bystanders with entertainment.
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She gave her a rueful grin and hurried out the front door, nearly slamming into Kyle.
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It is sorrowful, rueful, and pragmatic and not quite as heart breaking as many others on his album Northwest Passage.
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He can still sing, but he now misses notes like older people miss buses, and looks rueful when they pass him by.
The Times Literary Supplement
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Just rueful reflection on the one that got away.
Times, Sunday Times
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Now they have nothing but rueful regrets accompanied by doubts about how much longer this partly ageing side can remain together.
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The best of the slush is undoubtedly both lyrically rueful and melodically engaging.
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While he was a strong proponent of anti-inflationary policies, he looked back on these years with a certain ruefulness.
Times, Sunday Times
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"And I missed another later because I didn't keep my composure, " said the young striker ruefully.
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She shook her head, ruefully, at the plump, high-coloured face in the mirror, then went out to water the garden.
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He allows himself only a rueful laugh.
Times, Sunday Times
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Other times he would laugh humorlessly, shaking his head ruefully as he scribbled furiously upon his pad.
The Monstrumologist
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A slow and rueful smile played on the old man's lips.
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He was dignified and rueful, but it was hard to imagine that it had come as a dreadful personal blow.
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They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face.
Fairy Tales
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A great many of us don't feel wistful or rueful about our earlier physical selves.
Times, Sunday Times
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He allowed himself a rueful smile.
Times, Sunday Times
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Of course, he adds ruefully, it took him another eight months to get his head back together.
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That conflict produces the rueful sense of disappointment that all of Ford's characters share, and that he illuminates so well.
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Last year, a rep of the phone company ruefully admitted it was stretching the truth.
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When nothing happened, she turned, and gave a rueful little shrug.
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I'm not much good for anything else,’ he added ruefully, hoping that an admission of his poor seamanship would mollify the other boy.
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Kay nodded to Ryan with a rueful grin upon his lips as he slipped out of his seat and moved towards the ladies.
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His expression was rueful as he glanced down at me.
At First Sight
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Lochte smiled, the kind of grin that some might call rueful, but for him it was just a chuckle.
Undefined
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He allowed himself a rueful smile.
Times, Sunday Times
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Though the weather was cool and the night tempestuous, he had thrown aside his pea-jacket, with most of his disguise, and was sitting ruefully on his blanket, wiping, with one hand, the large drops of sweat from his forehead, and occasionally grasping his throat with the other, with a kind of convulsed mechanical movement.
The Pilot
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And through it all he had the quick memory of his mother's companionship, he could recall her rueful looks whenever the eager inaccurate ways, in which he reflected certain ineradicable tendencies of her own, had lost him a school advantage; he could remember her exhortations, with the dash in them of humorous self-reproach which made them so stirring to the child's affection; and he could realise their old far-off life at Murewell, the joys and the worries of it, and see her now gossiping with the village folk, now wearing herself impetuously to death in their service, and now roaming with him over the Surrey heaths in search of all the dirty delectable things in which a boy-naturalist delights.
Robert Elsmere
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In the revised edition (1992) of his book Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, the sociologist Andrew Cherlin ruefully comments: If there were a truth-in-labeling law for books, the title of this edition should be something long and unwieldy like Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, More
Dan Quayle Was Right
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What you lose, inevitably, is Orwell's peculiar tone of voice: rueful, ironic, honest, self-deprecating.
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She exhaled, letting a bit of the tension flow out of her, and gave me a rueful grin.
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She shook her head, ruefully, at the plump, high-coloured face in the mirror, then went out to water the garden.
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He shook his head and gave me a rueful smile.
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I finger-tipped the last crumbs of my wafer-thin slice of cake and put the plate down, ruefully, looking with some envy at Graham finishing the last of a huge man-sized chunk.
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The smile she gave Wanda Bryk was the rueful, wan, chastened smile of someone who had just come through a crying spell.
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Obligation, she ruefully reflected, was a flimsy basis for creativity.
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He recalls those times now with rueful recognition but no great regret.
Times, Sunday Times
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He allowed himself a rueful smile.
Times, Sunday Times
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He reiterated, as well, his devotion to non-violent principles, recalling ruefully that when Tibetans briefly resorted to political force in an uprising in the 1950s the result was "more suppression, more control, more rigidity" – and a half-million dead.
Dalai Lama Begins Visit
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Ashenden somewhat ruefully took out a number of notes and handed them to the Mexican.
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He gazed ruefully in the mirror at his greying locks.
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A rueful smile crosses Weir's face as he remembers such descriptions.
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But remaining silent in the face of hatred is not a perspective, it is rueful cowardice.
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Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan, the president ruefully noted after the Cuban fiasco.
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He sighed and ruefully gazed down the rocky mountainside to the glistening valley below.
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Disaster theorists will ruefully note that it has little to do with global warming.
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They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face.
Fairy Tales
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They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the road and making a most rueful face.
Fairy Tales
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In fact, it could be the kind of flop that folks around the blogosphere discuss in rueful tones.
Paint it black: DC Comics solicitations for July 2009 | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment
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Just rueful reflection on the one that got away.
Times, Sunday Times
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He looks rueful, just for a instant.
Times, Sunday Times
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The French referendum result should raise rueful smiles
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She nodded and he turned to Holly with a rueful smile.
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“Pratchett knows what the smart set say about him, and ruefully accepts that the kind of fetishistic following enjoyed by J K Rowling, whose sales he rivals, will never be his.”
You had a baby. - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
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Reckless youth makes rueful age.
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He can still sing, but he now misses notes like older people miss buses, and looks rueful when they pass him by.
The Times Literary Supplement
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Jane promptly fell in love, though, as she ruefully told Betty, it was unclear if it was with the strapping six-foot-two-inch Leo or some “romantic idea” of life in the exotic Dutch East Indies.
A Covert Affair
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A small gas - jet furnished sufficient light for so rueful a corner.
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There were two starbases there, 18 at Hamal and 20 at gamma Arietis / Mesarthim; each was well provided with weaponry of its own and a large complement of starships, and Starbase 20 and its starship complement had the additional advantage of being staffed by the Mesarth, probably one of the most aggressive species in the Federation “except for humans,” Spock had once commented rather ruefully.
Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages
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They are rueful memory plays, bittersweet family chronicles, compassionate portraits of oddballs, losers, and rascals.
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We are reminded of Defoe's Moll Flanders, whose narrator ruefully recalls aspiring as a young maidservant to be a ‘Gentlewoman’ like a woman in her village who sits at her window dressed in fine clothes.
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Just rueful reflection on the one that got away.
Times, Sunday Times
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(Obviously Shafer disagrees with Barthoff's conclusion that Villages embodies "a certain rueful but forgiving intelligence and, yes, wisdom about the accumulating passages, overt and hidden, of ordinary human existence," but that Walter Berthoff liked this novel while Shafer did not certainly seems an insufficient reason to call Berthoff dishonest.
Book Reviewing
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Anthony's point is as simple as it is rueful: laughter is recreative, but only because our fallen nature is so unapt to take solace from contemplating Heaven.
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With wry insight, he views the Steins ensconced in rueful domesticity.
The Book of Salt: Summary and book reviews of The Book of Salt by Monique Truong.
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Better to hide out in the bathroom, she recalled ruefully, than risk the public humiliation of eating solo.
Chicagotribune.com - News
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In a recent song, he ruefully concedes that his fans prefer the Shady persona.
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Overtly unshowy, it is deceptively lighthearted and rueful, its sharpness masked in humour.
Times, Sunday Times
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She thought ruefully of the cigarette butt, and of Johnny's small handful of apple tree leaves.
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He ruefully admitted that the great league in the country where the sport was born may no longer be "the gold standard" of hoops.
