Word: idler
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...wakes me some mornings before daybreak. 'If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a quitter.' I have heard her say that all my life. Now, lying in bed, coming awake in the dark, I feel the fury of her energy fighting the good-for-nothing idler within me who wants to go back to sleep instead of tackling the brave...
...Barnacle Bill the Sailor is not about to be caught looking like a privileged idler. On his 30-day haul from Hawaii to Papua New Guinea in June 1985, his seabag included manuscripts, stacks of correspondence and a portable computer on which he wrote letters, articles and, it is suggested, portions of a Blackford Oakes novel. Buckley's boatmates, too, seemed eager not to appear that they were getting away from it all. In addition to sharing sailing duties with a paid crew, the author and three of his companions stood literary watch. Evan Galbraith, a former ambassador to France...
...basement, the Picadilly Filly replaced the Idler coffehouse, where folk legends like Bob Dylan are said to have gotten their start...
...Romantic heroines, after all, are supposed to choose emotion over responsibility. But that was when there were suitable romantic heroes. Try as she might, Anna cannot convey the magic and charm she perceives in Leo. To the nonsmitten observer, he seems to be little more than a foul-mouthed idler and sponge, an unmitigated egotist who is capable of remarking, when Anna tells him that their lovemaking has resulted in pregnancy, "I'm just not anxious to have any kid. There's a way in which I see it as a form of self-indulgence, really...
...Bail is told by an educated Indian woman who has thrown her prospects away on an idler named Rajee. She supports them both by working in a shop, while he makes imaginary business deals in coffee- houses and visits his mistress twice a week. Rajee is arrested for some unspecified offense; the woman's father, who sacrificed so that she might improve her standing in society, mourns loudly over the disastrous course she has chosen. She remembers instead how her father and Rajee agreed to her marriage after she had poured kerosene over her clothes and prepared to set herself...