All 50 Uses of
brief
in
Atlas Shrugged
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- As men on a dark prairie liked to see the lighted windows of a train going past, her achievement, the sight of power and purpose that gave them reassurance in the midst of empty miles and night —so she wanted to feel it for a moment, a brief greeting, a single glimpse, just to wave her arm and say: Someone is going somewhere…… She started walking slowly, her hands in the pockets of her coat, the shadow of her slanting hat brim across her face.†
Chpt 1.4
- The great chain stopped over a car, descended, jerked in a brief spasm and left the rails in the car.†
Chpt 1.4
- She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning to point at the birch tree behind him and saying in the tone of their childhood game: "I wish you'd learn to run faster.†
Chpt 1.5
- Francisco's stay in New York was brief, that fall.†
Chpt 1.5 *
- His letters were brief, written by hand, usually at night.†
Chpt 1.5
- She smiled at Rearden, coldly, for a brief, stressed moment, then moved away.†
Chpt 1.6
- There was only a brief stab of shock in her eyes, then she said indifferently, the words sounding as if she were tossing alms, "By all means, Jim.†
Chpt 1.7
- He studied the figures for a few moments, marking some brief calculations on the margin of the sheet.†
Chpt 1.7
- She had flown to New York unexpectedly, at a moment's notice, leaping to the controls of her plane within twenty minutes after hearing a brief item in a news broadcast.†
Chpt 1.8
- In the summer days and in the heavy stillness of the evenings of the city, there were moments when a lonely man or woman-on a park bench, on a street corner, at an open window-would see in a newspaper a brief mention of the progress of the John Galt Line, and would look at the city with a sudden stab of hope.†
Chpt 1.8
- But they went by so fast that she could not grasp their meaning until, like the squares of a movie film, brief flashes blended into a whole and she understood it.†
Chpt 1.8
- In the brief space of his answer, she felt frightened, sensing a sudden fear within him.†
Chpt 1.9
- She smiled in the brief space of his pause; she knew the sentence he had stopped himself from uttering: " and for that, I would forgive anyone anything."†
Chpt 1.9
- She gave a brief chuckle.†
Chpt 1.10
- She took a cigarette and he struck the brief flare of a match, then shook it out, leaving only two small points of fire in the darkness of a glass room and of miles of mountains beyond it.†
Chpt 1.10
- The word that Lawrence Hammond had retired came when least expected, brief and sudden like the single stroke of a bell in a heavy stillness.†
Chpt 2.1
- This was only a small, extraneous stab of pain, he thought, a feeling of disappointment in an expectation he had never had the right to expect; he should have known that this was just what a man like Francisco d'Anconia would do-and he wondered angrily why he felt as if a bright, brief flame had died somewhere in a lightless world.†
Chpt 2.1
- He walked briskly, in a Morse code pattern of short dashes and brief stops, with a manner of faint irritation, as if conscious of the number of people whom his displeasure might worry.†
Chpt 2.2
- He had answered, he had seen Lillian's brief nod, and then he had seen Lillian moving away and realized that he had stood with his head bowed for a long moment.†
Chpt 2.2
- The brief, taut movement of his lips was a smile.†
Chpt 2.3
- Dr. Ferris gave a brief frown, as if a dot of the pattern had slipped and almost cost him the game, then chuckled, as if he had recaptured it.†
Chpt 2.3
- A narrow door slid open with a brief gasp of flame, and a sheet of red-glowing coke came sliding out smoothly, like a slice of bread from the side of a giant toaster.†
Chpt 2.3
- Rearden stood still and caught a brief instant when Francisco, not moving, looked at him with the hint of an amused smile that was like a wink between conspirators at a secret they both understood, but would not acknowledge.†
Chpt 2.3
- It was only an instant, almost too brief to grasp, because it seemed to him that Francisco rose at once at his entrance, with a movement of courteous deference.†
Chpt 2.3
- He remembered his brief glimpse-on that morning in the Wayne Falkland Hotel-of a flaw in her scheme of punishment, which he had not examined.†
Chpt 2.4
- In the name of whatever grace and pride she possessed-in the name of such moments when he had seen a smile of joy on her face, the smile of a living being-in the name of the brief shadow of love he had once felt for her-he would not pronounce upon her a verdict of total evil.†
Chpt 2.4
- They printed brief accounts on unlikely pages, worded in such generalities that no reader could discover any hint of a controversial issue.†
Chpt 2.4
- In the brief lulls of the storm, when the white mesh vanished and left behind it the stillness of a black void merging a lightless earth with a starless skythe passengers could see, many miles away to the south, a small tongue of flame twisting in the wind.†
Chpt 2.5
- Watching him at the job of loading the trucks, Rearden thought that this boy, if born a generation earlier, would have become a great industrialist; now, he would probably end his brief life as a plain criminal in a few more years.†
Chpt 2.5
- She watched him empty his glass in a single gesture; the brusque, brief movement of his hand made it look like the gesture of some solemn pledge.†
Chpt 2.5
- She looked at the phone's mouthpiece for the instant of a brief shock.†
Chpt 2.6
- They could see nothing beyond the glass bay of the observation window at the end of the car, except the small halos of red and green lanterns marking the rear of the train, and a brief stretch of rail running away from them into the darkness.†
Chpt 2.7
- There was a brief silence on the wire, then the voice of the Omaha operator told him that the general manager had resigned and vanished three days ago-"over a little trouble with Mr. Locey," the voice added.†
Chpt 2.7
- She knew-by the way he looked at her, by an instant's drop of his eyelids closing his eyes, by the brief pull of his head striving to lean back and resist, by the faint, half-smiling, half-helpless relaxation of his lips, then by the sudden harshness of his arms as he seized herthat it was involuntary, that he had not intended it, and that it was irresistibly right for both of them.†
Chpt 2.8
- It was two hours later, in a brief pause between long-distance phone calls, that she asked him suddenly the first question which did not pertain to the railroad: "What have they done to Hank Rearden?"†
Chpt 2.8
- She gave a brief, harsh chuckle.†
Chpt 2.8
- The break in her voice was almost too brief to notice, but what it held was the thought: Rearden Metal rail for going back to the time before heavy steel?†
Chpt 2.8
- When she felt herself shaking and heard her own voice, it seemed to meet the last echo of her scream in the air of the room-and she realized how brief a moment had passed between.†
Chpt 2.9
- Francisco's head jerked to her, the brief snap of his voice held all of his unreleased violence, and she knew it was an order that had to be obeyed.†
Chpt 2.9
- She went on speaking-and he listened, looking down at his pad, making a brief notation once in a while.†
Chpt 2.9
- He knew what was wrong with him, he thought; he did not want her to leave, he did not want to lose her again, after so brief a moment of reunion.†
Chpt 2.9
- Her mouth moved in the brief snap of a smile.†
Chpt 2.10
- "Miss Taggart," he said, with an odd note of sternness in his voice, "just remember that he represented a code of existence which-for a brief span in all human history-drove slavery out of the civilized world.†
Chpt 2.10
- She gave a brief chuckle, she stepped onto a tie of the track, stressing the step as her answer, and they went on.†
Chpt 2.10
- The decision was made for him by the brusque, confident manner of the two strangers-by the credentials of Miss Dagny Taggart, Vice-President of a railroadby brief hints about a secret, emergency mission, which sounded like Washington to him-by the mention of an agreement with the airline's top officials in New York, whose names he had never heard before-by a check for fifteen thousand dollars, written by Miss Taggart, as deposit against the return of the Sanders plane-and by another…†
Chpt 2.10
- …of the motor's sound that broke off, like a mountain rockslide, all contact with the time behind her-to the circling fall of a blade that vanished in a fragile sparkle of whirling air that cut the space ahead-to the start for the runway-to the brief pause-then to the forward thrust-to the long, perilous run, the run not to be obstructed, the straight line ran that gathers power by spending it on a harder and harder and ever-accelerating effort, the straight line to a purpose-to the…†
Chpt 2.10
- A brief, tight movement of her lips was as close as she could come to a smile: it was he who was flying her plane for her, she thought; he had given her the power to follow him with a somnambulist's unerring skill.†
Chpt 2.10
- She wondered why it seemed to her that Galt was watching her face intently and that she saw an instant's change in his, too brief to define.†
Chpt 3.1
- I don't know how long he stood there, watching me, but what I remember is that suddenly his hand reached over, swept all my figures off the blackboard and wrote one brief equation.†
Chpt 3.1
- It was so brief a moment that two of the men before her could take it only as a greeting-but it was at Galt that she looked when she raised her head, and she saw him looking at her as if he knew what she felt-she saw him seeing in her face the realization that it was he who had walked out of Danagger's office, that day.†
Chpt 3.1
Definition:
-
(meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) Brief is most commonly encountered as an adjective meaning "of short duration." Other meanings derive from the idea of short--as when making a long story short by summarizing it, or when wearing briefs (underwear).