"Possessive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under-sized, with prominent Adam's apple. Is attracted by large women, whom he dominates. Is assured, violent and jealous. Appetite fastidious. Takes sleeping powders during course of disease and uses telephone frequently to find out if the object of his affections is lunching with another man. Is extremely possessive as to women, and has had in early years a strong desire to take the other fellow's girl away from him. Is pugnacious and intelligent, but has moments of great tenderness and charm. Shows his worst side to the neighbors and breathes freely after nine o'clock P.M., ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... be recorded that the same day the gunboat Neptun, steering east, passed the brig Bonito becalmed in sight of Carimata, with her head to the eastward, too. Her captain, Jasper Allen, giving himself up consciously to a tender, possessive reverie of his Freya, did not get out of his long chair on the poop to look at the Neptun which passed so close that the smoke belching out suddenly from her short black funnel rolled between the masts of the Bonito, obscuring for a moment the sunlit whiteness ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... gone to bed David sat thinking of the episode. One of the little criticisms, quite definite now, lingered: a suspicion that Shirley's words were not always pearls of wisdom, that her attitude was a little too possessive, her demands upon his time and thought and scanty store of money a trifle less than reasonable sometimes. Sternly he crushed ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... two minutes the Eye of Zeitoon was grinning at us through a small square window in the wall at one end of the veranda. Then he came round and once more vaulted the veranda rail, for he seemed to hold ordinary means of entry in contempt. His eye looked very possessive for that of one seeking employment as a guide, but he stood at respectful ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Mongolian mouth has no capacity for sounding. R he invariably sounds like l, so that the word "rice" he pronounces "lice"—a bit of information which may prevent an unpleasant apprehension when you come to employ a Chinese cook. He rejects the English personal pronoun I, and uses the possessive "my" in its place; thus, "My go home," in place of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... now account for what has hitherto puzzled all grammarians, namely, the double possessive. This book of John's means, this book of all John's; that is, this book forming a part of all John's, of all things ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... this remark, though his eyes were on her. They were not like Rolfe's eyes, insinuating, possessive; they had the anomalistic quality, of being at once personal and impersonal, friendly, alight, evoking curiosity yet ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... approximate arrangement. In pleonasms, which are comparatively prevalent among the uneducated, the same essential structure is seen; as, for instance, in—"The men, they were there." Again, the old possessive case—"The king, his crown," conforms to the like order of thought. Moreover, the fact that the indirect mode is called the natural one, implies that it is the one spontaneously employed by the common people: that is—the ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... the nurse's odd way of using the possessive pronoun, and dropped her eyes, as was natural on hearing ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... for number, person and case. There are two forms of the dual and plural in the first person. The following table shows the nominative and possessive cases: ...
— The Gundungurra Language • R. H. Mathews
... take; come to terms &c. (contract) 769; submit to arbitration, abide by arbitration; patch up, bridge over, arrange; straighten out, adjust, differences, agree; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; take the will for the deed. % Section IV. POSSESSIVE RELATIONS <— That is, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... There is probably a slight misprint in the last line, since the construction there becomes somewhat obscure. "My Love's Eyes" has merit, but lacks polish. The word "azure" in the first stanza, need not be in the possessive case; whilst the use of a singular verb with a plural noun in the second stanza (smiles-beguiles) is a little less than grammatical. "Longing" exhibits the author at her best, the images and phraseology alike showing the touch ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... more to Flora's subtlety and diligence. It refreshed Madame to see how well the fair strategist kept her purposes hid. Not even Irby called them—those he discerned—hers. In any case, at any time, any possessive but my or mine, or my or mine on any lip but his, angered him. Wise Flora, whenever she alluded to their holding of the plighted ones apart, named the scheme his till that cloyed, and then "ours" in a way that made it more richly his, even when—clearly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... and his justice of peace. My indolence was conquered by my love of power: I supported the contest; the affair came before our grand jury: I conquered, and Mr. Hardcastle was ever after, of course, my enemy. To English ears the possessive pronouns my and his may sound extraordinary, prefixed to a justice of peace; but, in many parts of Ireland, this language is perfectly correct. A great man talks of making a justice of the peace with perfect confidence; a very great man talks with as much certainty of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... of resentment swept through her; the patronage in his tone, the indefinable suggestion of possession was, she thought, uncalled for. That he should approve of Frank in that possessive manner was not far removed ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... of the name in his "American Hero Myths" is slightly different from that given in his "Native Calendar," above mentioned. In the former he says uotan "is from the pure Maya root word tan, which means primarily 'the breast,' or that which is in the front or in the middle of the body; with the possessive prefix it becomes utan. In Tzental this word means both 'breast' and 'heart.'" It must be admitted that these explanations are apparently somewhat strained, yet it is possible they are substantially correct, as they appear to receive some support ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... day after the funeral that it all came out. Lena and Ethel were sitting up together over the papers and the letters, turning out his bureau. I suppose that, in the grand immunity his death conferred on her, poor Lena had become provokingly possessive. I can hear her saying to Ethel that there had never been anybody but her, all those years. Praising his faithfulness; holding out her dead happiness, and apologizing to Ethel for talking about it when Ethel didn't understand, never having ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... simple and natural and break the intolerable silence. Finally, she felt that she could endure it no longer, and putting her hand to her forehead, pushed back her hair and heaved a deep sigh. He instantly moved to her all brooding, possessive inquiry. She became alarmed lest he meant to kiss her again and edged away ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... at him with fond admiration; he might have been better pleased had there not been in the look a suggestion of the possessive. "How they do need you! Father says—But I mustn't make you any ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... never wanted before. At the thought, he flushed with the idea that the portrait's eyes were reading his face, and compelled himself to look bravely at it; but as he met the lovely eyes strange questions darted into his brain: whether he would not rather have been solely to blame; whether his all-possessive love of her would not be more flawless now if she had been a flawless eternal-feminine type, longing for motherhood, but denying it for his sake; whether he would not be happier now in looking at her portrait if some warm ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... ... characteristics of the poetry are the use of archaic forms and words, such as mec for m, the possessive sn, gamol, dgor, swt for eald, dg, bld, etc., after they had become obsolete in the prose language, and the use of special compounds and phrases, such as hildendre (war-adder) for 'arrow,' gold-gifa (gold-giver) for 'king,' ... goldwine gumena (goldfriend of men, distributor of gold ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... memory registered the slight difference in the wording of the greeting as reported by this pseudo-Nita and the man she was running to meet. But Penny, as Nita, was already straightening Tracey Miles' necktie with possessive, coquettish fingers, was coaxing, with head ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... conquering talons all that belongs to us; for we do not, in life, make any great difference between what is we and what is ours—an insult to our dog, our dwelling, or our work wounds us as much as an insult to ourselves. The possessive pronoun expresses both possession and possessor. In fact, we consider our body ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... daily life had checked long ago, began its struggle for life; and when the same sweet odour came again—he knew now it was the scent of heliotrope—his heart was lifted and he was overcome in a sweet possessive trouble. He sought for the cheque amid the bundle of cheques and, finding it, he pressed the paper to his face. The cheque was written in a thin, feminine handwriting, and was signed "Henrietta Brown," and the name and handwriting were pregnant ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... advantage possessed by the Teutonic over the Romance languages in idiomatic clearness and precision it is that conferred by their ownership of a possessive case, almost the sole remaining monument to the fact that our ancestors spoke an inflected tongue. That we should still be able to speak of "the baker's wife's dog" instead of "the dog of the wife of the baker" certainly should be regarded by English-speaking ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... her wistfully. The bow-legged range-rider was in no hurry to have her go. She was the first girl who had ever looked twice at him, the first one he had ever taken out or talked nonsense with or been ordered about by in the possessive fashion used by the modern young woman. Hence he was head ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... that it was his youth she wanted most, partly because it was Martin's youth, partly because it called to something in her which was not youth, nor yet belonged to age—something which was wise, tender and possessive—something which had never ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... found between words having a close syntactical relation, particularly if the initial vowel of the second word is in a constituent syllable. It may occur between the article and its substantive, the possessive adjective and its substantive, a preposition and its object, the negatives no and ni and a following vowel; and after the conjunctions y, que, si, and other words having a weak accent such as desde, coma, todo, otro, ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... Inflection Defined Number The Formation of Plurals Compound Nouns Case The Formation of the Possessive Case Gender ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... for the Use of the Apostrophe.—The apostrophe is used to denote the possessive case, to indicate the omission of letters, and to form the plural of signs, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... think; no, not my name, I feel sure.' He accentuated the possessive pronoun strongly, and then proceeded to explain the accentuation, smiling more and more amiably as he did so. 'No, not my name; my brother's—my ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... flower-trimmed table. Worth's back was to the room; I saw them over his shoulder, in the lead a tall blonde, very smartly dressed, but not in evening clothes; in severe, exclusive street wear. The man with her, good looking, almost her own type, had that possessive air which seems somehow unmistakable—and there was a look about the half dozen companions after them, as they settled themselves in a great flurry of scraping chairs, that made me murmur with ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... and possessive personal pronouns are alike in form, and, as in other American languages, are intimately incorporated with the words with which they are construed. A single letter is the root of each: d I, mine, b thou, thine, ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton
... for the most part, words used instead of nouns. They may be arranged under the following divisions: Personal, Possessive, Relative, ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... her coffee and sat beside him. Her face betokened satisfaction, and she looked at Gregorio with a possessive smile. She had gained her desire, and asked fortune for ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... very eve of their marriage. Then suddenly it seemed to her that all the people she cared for in the world were pushing her away from them towards him, giving her up, handing her over. He became—possessive. His abjection changed to pride. She perceived that she was going to be left tremendously alone with him, with an effect, as if she had stepped off a terrace on to what she believed to be land and had abruptly ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... men is addressed through their understanding and conscience. Mr. Johnson's understanding and conscience can be addressed only through his will. He puts intellectual principles and the moral law in the possessive case, thinks he pays them a compliment and adds to their authority when he makes them the adjuncts of his petted pronoun "my"; and things to him are reasonable and right, not from any quality inherent in themselves, but because they are made so by his determinations. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... in the use, of the possessive pronoun here and elsewhere, let it signify also the life of my life-partner—is beyond the range of ordinary experience, since it is immune from the ferments which seethe and muddle the lives of the many, I am assured that a familiar record will not be deemed egotistical, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Irene, never, as the reader may possibly have observed, present, except through the senses of other characters, is a concretion of disturbing Beauty impinging on a possessive world. ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of John Galsworthy • John Galsworthy
... Xahila, I have encountered certain difficulties which have been only partially surmounted. As the Cakchiquel, though a written, is not a printed tongue, there has no rule been established as to the separation of verbs and their pronominal subjects, of nouns and their possessive pronouns, of the elements of compound particles, of tense and mode signs, etc. In the MSS. the utmost laxity prevails in these respects, and they seem not to have been settled points in the orthography of the tongue. The frequent elisions and euphonic ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... that a letter or letters are left out; as, O'er, for over; 't is, for it is. It also denotes the possessive ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... her hands, one after the other, with a possessive tenderness that told her better than words, that he had not resigned ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... attains the faculty of instinctively avoiding these, his technique improves. Perfected, he would never use them, and his sentences would flow untaught from his pen in absolutely clear reflection of his thought. As an example of what I mean by awkwardnesses, I would cite the use of "whose" as the possessive of "which." I know that adequate authority pronounces this correct, so it is not on that score I reject it. Moreover, I recognize that in myself the repulsion is somewhat of an acquired taste. When I began to write I thus employed it myself, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan |
