Word: rueful
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...Clinton poked his head into McCurry's daily briefing Thursday and did the disseminating himself for a change. "Much to my regret . . . the long-awaited coup in the press office is finally taking place," Clinton said, and it's no surprise that the President's smile seemed a little rueful...
...that as well. Not anything so vulgar as a raw sexual encounter, mind you--nothing that would interfere with our contemplation of the simple, natural life that this movie is determined to idealize. But some soulful slow dancing, some rides into the sunset--the saintly Tom, all rueful smiles and gentle wisdom, can winsomely manage that. The question is, can we manage nearly three hours in the company of so perfect a male animal, a figure from whom, in fact, everything animalistic--for that matter, anything jaggedly human--has been blanched? There comes a time when you'd give anything...
...Quad's own inhabitants are partly to blame for its image problem. The average Quadling, when asked how he or she can stand living there, will at best murmur that it's not so bad, really and inevitably conclude with a rueful comment on the distance. That's all wrong. The proper response should be: "What are you talking about? It's great!" Too often the Quad resident is actually brainwashed by this kind of misdirected sympathy into feeling sorry for himself or herself. There's really no reason for it. We ought to be smirking, or even openly boasting...
...dead in middle age. His funeral is just over, and his friends and family have gathered at a quiet bar in the Bronx to forgive his ghost and congratulate his widow. So Alice McDermott sets down at the outset of Charming Billy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 280 pages; $22), a rueful shrug of a novel whose strong, shrewd opening pages should be taught in college writing classes...
...blazing years. Angie, a part-time waitress, cracks the art world with large, spirited canvases and the smarts to know that even a gifted girl has to hustle. Mims' own promising career as a writer is detoured by home-nursing the stricken. His key ring, he notes with rueful pride, weighs three pounds...