I guess she was a compulsive liar even back then.

Kathryn Stockett  --  The Help

At first, looking out for a ship was something I did all the time, compulsively.

Yann Martel  --  Life of Pi

Aunt Petunia was compulsively straightening cushions.

J.K. Rowling  --  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Liesel even thought that perhaps she could get away with only telling Papa, but she didn’t want him thinking that he had a compulsive criminal on his hands.

Markus Zusak  --  The Book Thief

The compulsively superstitious person is also very often a serious believer in fate; that was the case with Perry.

Truman Capote  --  In Cold Blood

He’s compulsive.

Cassandra Clare  --  City of Ashes

In fact, he was finding it almost impossible to do either, so scrambled were his powers of performance by the compulsive need for haste that invariably possessed him.

Joseph Heller  --  Catch-22

There’s something compulsive about that.

Stieg Larsson  --  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I replied: "Well, I’m a compulsive male and I like to make little toy soldiers move around on my command, and that’s fun."

Randy Pausch  --  The Last Lecture

There are people who collect insurance as compulsively as others collect coins and stamps, and Mark Torrance had been that type.

Stephen King  --  The Shining

As the time I had suggested came and went, I found myself glancing compulsively over my shoulder, breathing a sigh of relief when a figure appeared in the distance.

Nicholas Sparks  --  Dear John

Sure, I’m a compulsive talker of a kind, but I’m really more clown than fool.

Ralph Ellison  --  Invisible Man

Usually he’s more obsessive/compulsive.

Rick Riordan  --  The Son of Neptune

Silvan Tomkins, maybe the greatest mind reader of them all, was compulsive about practicing.

Malcolm Gladwell  --  Blink

You were supposed to be so tough, he had thought once, after one of his compulsive lifting exercises.

Stephen King  --  Misery

Driven by compulsive animal fear, I ran for the streets, slipped in among a column of Council workers just leaving the place, and got through the gate that way.

Wladyslaw Szpilman  --  The Pianist

A compulsively methodical man, he had elaborate systems in place that were supposed to prevent such a catastrophe.

Jon Krakauer  --  Into Thin Air

Though it did not have the violent, compulsive panic which it had carried last time, it was intense; the degree of distress and anxiety was enough to be highly uncomfortable at the receiving end.

John Wyndham  --  The Chrysalids

Like to the Pontic Sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont; Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love, Till that a capable and wide revenge Swallow them up.

William Shakespeare  --  Othello, the Moor of Venice

Leto watched the movements of the man’s hands: compulsive touchings—the edge of a plate, the handle of a spoon, a finger tracing the fold of a jowl.

Frank Herbert  --  Dune

It has been decided that you were compulsively promiscuous.

Susanna Kaysen  --  Girl Interrupted

Her mom was a flight attendant and a compulsive shopper, a deadly combination that resulted in Chloe always having the newest stuff from the best places.

Sarah Dessen  --  This Lullaby

I’m compulsively friendly.

Sarah Dessen  --  Lock and Key

Deanna’s free hand gestured compulsively as she asked the questions.

Nicholas Sparks  --  Message in a Bottle

His wife—Randy did not know her name because Dan never uttered it—apparently had been extravagant, a nympho, a one-drink alcoholic, and a compulsive gambler.

Pat Frank  --  Alas, Babylon

On the way out I open one more door, compulsively.

Robert M. Pirsig  --  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

He was compulsive, ate all the time.

Chris Crutcher  --  Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

To Ruth, however, the counting was practical, not compulsive; it had to do with remembering things, not warding off some superstitious nonsense.

Amy Tan  --  The Bonesetter’s Daughter

Oh, yes, I became neurotically compulsive about cleanliness.

Pat Conroy  --  The Lords of Discipline

But the first order of business is for him to compulsively pick up every speck of dirt, debris and tobacco by hand.

Steve Lopez  --  The Soloist

The Freudians declare that each of us is slaying his father, marrying his mother, all the time—only unconsciously: the roundabout symbolic ways of doing this and the rationalizations of the consequent compulsive activity constitute our individual lives and common civilization.

Joseph Campbell  --  The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Most of our watchwords were unspoken but we followed them as compulsively as a baby duck takes to water.

Robert A. Heinlein  --  Glory Road

My allusions are compulsive attempts at false erudition.

Robert Ludlum  --  The Bourne Ultimatum

In her case this has to do with compulsive neurotic behaviour.

Stieg Larsson  --  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Stink compulsively cleaned and oiled his weapon.

Tim O’Brien  --  Going After Cacciato

We had just a few at first, but since Mom was not exactly a compulsive cleaner, they multiplied.

Jeannette Walls  --  The Glass Castle

His choosiness about where he squatted to defecate had grown to the point of compulsive obsession.

John Grogan  --  Marley & Me

Though she supposed there was some truth in that, there was also something compulsive about his habits.

Nicholas Sparks  --  The Best of Me

He talked to her in a reassuring, trite and slightly compulsive way, like a first-timer nervous in a singles bar.

Don DeLillo  --  Underworld

He sighed, recognizing that his compulsive need to review their history was simply an attempt to calm his nerves.

Nicholas Sparks  --  True Believer