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wistful
in a sentence

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  • Her porcelain face looked wistfully at Esperanza with enormous eyes.†   (source)
  • "So," said Wood, at long last, jerking Harry from a wistful fantasy about what he could be eating for breakfast at this very moment up at the castle.†   (source)
  • Still," she murmured wistfully, "I sho' wish he could've stayed...."†   (source)
  • They'd go sailing by moonlight in his little yacht, the Water Nixie, named by Adelia — another of her wistful Gothicisms.†   (source)
  • With her it was not hope, or wistful thoughts—it was her sense of being alive that thinned by the proportion of her spirit devoted to him.†   (source)
  • A wistful look crosses over her face, and I'm about to give her a hug when she puts her hands on her hips.†   (source)
  • Or so said Mishka with the wistful amazement of one who has been given only a moment to admire a wonder of the world.†   (source)
  • As the doctor placed his arm around his daughter's shoulders, she looked at Paul wistfully through lowered lashes.†   (source)
  • He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.†   (source)
  • "It sounds," she said, wistfully, "like someone else's summer."†   (source)
  • And then a faint wistfulness.†   (source)
  • Mariam knew the story from Nana herself, and, though Nana dismissed the episode, Mariam could tell by the wistful light in her eyes that she had been happy.†   (source)
  • "And I could have a large inventing studio," Violet said wistfully.†   (source)
  • There was nothing wistful in the way he said this.†   (source)
  • "I suppose we'll have another Christmas without Jim's lovely party," she said in a wistful voice.†   (source)
  • "She looks really pretty," Marlee commented wistfully.†   (source)
  • At home, after the shuttle, after a Jell-O shot someone gave her on board, after listening to the shuttle driver talk wistfully about his family, his twins, his wife, who had gout, Mae couldn't sleep.†   (source)
  • He shook his head with a wistful sadness.†   (source)
  • She shook her head, wistful for a moment.†   (source)
  • When he was gone, Dany went to her window and looked out wistfully on the waters of the bay.†   (source)
  • "It's too bad we can't go somewhere," I say wistfully.†   (source)
  • She stared wistfully through the grate a moment, then looked up at Reynie as if surprised to see him still standing there.†   (source)
  • "But...we're very fond of our things," said one of the ladies wistfully.†   (source)
  • She looks wistful.†   (source)
  • Kit greeted her wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I thought the neighborhood looked more prosperous," he said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Another wistful look came into his tired old eyes.†   (source)
  • "I even noticed that kind of intellectual energy in the year and a half I was in college," he said, almost wistfully.†   (source)
  • He looked wistfully at where the mountain peaks were now concealed by clouds.†   (source)
  • Some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation, others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or macho zeal.†   (source)
  • She was sitting at the window, looking out, a forlorn figure, wistful.†   (source)
  • Otis, Quigly, and Esther didn't enter into Alyss' tales of Wonderland as fully as the younger orphans, but they enjoyed her stories enough to listen to them in wistful silence.†   (source)
  • Young people began disappearing in pairs after a while, and some of the older ones stopped their eating or drinking or singing or talking long enough to give them looks of disapproval—or more understanding wistful looks.†   (source)
  • Abenthy's voice grew vaguely wistful.†   (source)
  • The Chairman, who was gazing wistfully at the ornament in its box on the table, moved his lips, but no sound came out at first, until he cleared his throat and then said, with a strange sort of sadness, "Why, Nobu-san, I had no idea you were so sentimental."†   (source)
  • There was a sad, wistful look on her face, and I knew who she was missing.†   (source)
  • Then he smiled at me wistfully and went to sit by a girl with braces and a bad perm.†   (source)
  • Lilies upon the surface, deep below Two wistful faces craving each for each, Resolute and reluctant without speech:— A sudden ripple made the faces flow, One moment joined, to vanish out of reach: So those hearts joined, and ah were parted so.†   (source)
  • She looked wistful.†   (source)
  • "I was to Holland once," he said, voice wistful with recollection.†   (source)
  • The old fire was seeping back into this strange, wistful husk of my father.†   (source)
  • He just jotted some minor edits on the printout, handed it back to Saeed with a wistful smile, and said, "Send it out."†   (source)
  • Solomon smiled wistfully.†   (source)
  • But then the vampire smiled almost wistfully, and the smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon.†   (source)
  • She saw his face soften, the wistful curve of his mouth, as if he were looking at someone he loved.†   (source)
  • He doesn't seem to notice, there's a note of wistfulness in his voice.†   (source)
  • She was in cutoff jeans and a tank top, attracting the wistful stares of Robert, the depressive, and Alan, who had a little problem with fires, who were playing Parcheesi a few tables over.†   (source)
  • It was a smile which was both radiant and strangely wistful.†   (source)
  • Now Mrs. Tomolillo was sitting with her index linger on her cheek and her thumb under her chin, and her head tilted wistfully to one side.†   (source)
  • "Wouldn't it be nice to be that free?" she'd asked Bella wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Call me a throwback," he says, a wistful glint in his eye, "but when I see a teenage butt on a thirty-six-year-old woman, well, I just have to attend to it.†   (source)
  • "Look at us, so young," Auntie Gal sighed wistfully.†   (source)
  • Andy's palpable hunger for climbing, his unalloyed enthusiasm for the mountains, made me wistful for the period in my own life when climbing was the most important thing imaginable, when I charted the course of my existence in terms of mountains I'd ascended and those I hoped one day to ascend.†   (source)
  • The air was a reverie of wistful summer things, the last languorous day, a chance to go barelimbed once more, smell the mown clover.†   (source)
  • I gesture to the trash can, and Becca casts a wistful look in that direction.†   (source)
  • But later, beneath it, he'd thought he glimpsed something more wistful.†   (source)
  • Cass turned to Ingram and, in a voice he had never heard her use before, wistful and desirous, she asked, "Are you working on something new, Mr. Ingram?†   (source)
  • My mother's face is childlike and wistful.†   (source)
  • She looks at me and smiles wistfully.†   (source)
  • When asked why she chose the shingaling as the main theme of her dance, Echevarri grows wistful.†   (source)
  • One shop near the corner sold only earrings, and I watched wistfully as it went by.†   (source)
  • There is a colorful series of pictures from Hong Kong, Thailand, and other exotic places, which would usually have me thinking wistfully about going on holiday.†   (source)
  • Then, as though veiled in a private grief, the lawyer wistfully said, "And even after all of that you did nothing to discourage him?"†   (source)
  • For a moment, Fezzik felt almost wistful.†   (source)
  • As he deposited his coin and rolled past he remarked wistfully, "I do hope this is an interesting game, otherwise the afternoon will he so terribly dull."†   (source)
  • "If them bandits were to come, maybe the Captain would let me start wearing a gun," Newt said wistfully.†   (source)
  • I'm mighty glad to give 'em to yo' little gal. I only wisht," she said wistfully, "that hit was a boy.†   (source)
  • The way the desert smells and the long, wistful sigh of wind rushing down from the mountains as the sun dips beneath the horizon.†   (source)
  • The Acutes grumbled and griped at him and his towel, and the Chronics woke up to look around with beads blue from lack of blood cut off by sheets tied too tight across the chest, looking around the dorm till they finally centered on me with weak and watered-down old looks, faces wistful and curious.†   (source)
  • Wes is amazing, a true auteur involved in every aspect of production, with a trademark style recognizable in any frame wistful and quirky, deadpan and dark.†   (source)
  • You're right, said Tereza wistfully.†   (source)
  • Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don't rob more banks, embezzle more funds and employ graft in the unions.†   (source)
  • They were all gone, and he walked right out and moved in wistful dejection through the dark, emptying streets.†   (source)
  • "The curried lamb," he said, wistfully.†   (source)
  • Cal heard the wistfulness.†   (source)
  • Before locking up the shop that evening, she placed it in the window, a little wistful about having to part with it.†   (source)
  • "I'll bet it's cool down there," said Connor wistfully.†   (source)
  • Claire stole a wing from our bowl and wistfully shook her head.†   (source)
  • "Well I lost some in '60, so I suppose I'll lose some in, uh, maybe more in '64," Kennedy smiles wistfully, forced to reveal a painful political weakness.†   (source)
  • Sam sat in the bows, clutching the sides, and looking back wistfully to the shore.†   (source)
  • His denials, accompanied by a wistful smile which she interpreted as a sly one, only aggravated her suspicions.†   (source)
  • Yet on departure from the First Congress inlate October of 1774, after a stay of two months, he had written wistfully of the "happy, peaceful, the elegant, the hospitable, and polite city of Philadelphia," wondering if he would ever be back.†   (source)
  • Bert took a breath before replying, his expression more wistful than remorseful.†   (source)
  • Those vague and wistful occupations faded out of the picture after that December afternoon.†   (source)
  • If a beast can be said to have an expression such as wistfulness, then that was how Anteros looked to me.†   (source)
  • Sadako liked the wooden doll's wistful smile and the red roses painted on its kimono.†   (source)
  • She shimmied off, leaving Feeney gazing wistfully after her.†   (source)
  • She sighed wistfully.†   (source)
  • What Granny had also said, so wistful, was how she used to dream of going to New York with Grandpa, but he never saw why she wanted to.†   (source)
  • "Lots of space in Montana," DeWeese says, a little wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Come on," I said, taking her arm quite firmly, pulling her along as she sighed, her wistful face turned toward me.†   (source)
  • "To the tower," Pippa says, smiling wistfully.†   (source)
  • If nothing else, it was something to think about, and he thought wistfully of the younger days, when he had both feet, and before.†   (source)
  • He took one more wistful look around, then turned to face me.†   (source)
  • Three years later a wistful bugle cry carried over the empty track at Santa Anita, and sixteen thousand people gathered by the paddock to witness the unveiling of the George Woolf memorial statue.†   (source)
  • "I wish that I could have a drink," Mike answered wistfully, "as I have wondered about the subjective effect of ethanol on the human nervous system—I conjecture that it must be similar to a slight overvoltage.†   (source)
  • His wistful eyes, his lost, helpless, appealing smile served as substitute for the shell.†   (source)
  • And you'll be living at Anvard now," said Aravis rather wistfully.†   (source)
  • Aunt quickly shooed us to the door before my mother could change her mind, while Elder Sister and her sworn sisters stared after us wistfully.†   (source)
  • Sophie used to sit on one of the large, flat stones that shelved into the water, and watch me wistfully.†   (source)
  • His voice had a strange, almost wistful quality to it.†   (source)
  • He smiled wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Typical American no-good," Ralph would say; Theresa, "typical American don't-know-how-to-get-along"; and Helen, wistfully, "typical American just-want-to-be-the-center-of-things."†   (source)
  • I wish you'd get married," Mrs. Glass said, abruptly, wistfully.†   (source)
  • The spy thought hopefully, wistfully: if it's Stuart I can ask for an armed escort all the way home.†   (source)
  • He was genuinely grateful and relieved, and he bowed almost wistfully before me, making me feel as though I had indeed come to his aid, that I had helped save him from whatever fate he supposed would befall him were he to visit the ones delivered for our final solace and pleasure.†   (source)
  • "It's served us so well," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Only once she asked a little wistfully how frequently I would be able to visit her, and, although I knew such trips would have to be very rare since her future home lay some ten villages away, I assured her not a year would pass without my going to see her two or three times.†   (source)
  • At this, she would give a wistful smile.†   (source)
  • White man's metal would be rust; White man's stone work would be low hills and small caves; White man's murders would be wistful, beautiful notes in the song of the redbird—for the redbird remembered everything, turning it into goodness when it could.†   (source)
  • GUIL (at the last moment before they enter-wistfully): I'm sorry it wasn't a unicorn.†   (source)
  • I'd like to catch one fish," the girl said a little wistfully.†   (source)
  • The man had a kind of gray wistful twinkle in his eyes as though he remembered humor when it was not against the law, so that I dared go out on a limb.†   (source)
  • Conscientious to a fault, thoughtful of others, and affectionate within reasonable bounds, he was the kind of father whose idealized image appears in many wistful books of human family reminiscences, but whose real prototype has seldom paced the earth upon two legs.†   (source)
  • The advent of the Second World War and my involvement in it had caused Maria to fade out of my life, but she had been many times since in my wistful thoughts.†   (source)
  • KATE [ALMOST WISTFUL]: How—serene she is.†   (source)
  • He, too, had mistaken me for an Arab, and when we crossed he had dropped the burdened-down expression and given me a look of wistful inquisitiveness, like a puppy that wanted to play but had just been made to understand that it wasn't playtime.†   (source)
  • Her face grew slightly wistful, the cheeks smoothing.†   (source)
  • (Again this is not a moral dictum; it is said rather wistfully, as of something he is beginning to doubt) WOLSEY (After a pause, rather gently) I believe you believe that†   (source)
  • I would nearly embrace the stove in gratitude for its warmth, while Ted would discourse rather wistfully about the last time in his memory the edge of the river froze solid.†   (source)
  • She and the wistful round man still clasped hands through the window and continued to shine in the face like lighthouses smiling.†   (source)
  • White Fang gazed at him wistfully.   (source)
  • And all the while the dog sat and watched him, a certain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked upon him as the fire-provider, and the fire was slow in coming.   (source)
    wistfulness = full of longing or unfulfilled desire
  • "Down at the forges," Jake said wistfully.†   (source)
  • He looked wistfully out the second-floor window at the rolling hills covered in snow.†   (source)
  • "I wish the king would grow a beard," Natalie said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "It's been wonderful," Travis Stoll said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Dumbledore was smiling wistfully out of the front cover of a glossy book.†   (source)
  • His familiar husky voice sent a wave of wistfulness through me.†   (source)
  • I'd like to know mine," Eragon said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "The secret privileges!" said a girl wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Your mother is a queen among women," Poseidon said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Now, he looked wistfully at the little silver box, the focus of so many of his thoughts.†   (source)
  • Wistfully, she says, "I wish I'd been in love more than once.†   (source)
  • She stared at the box wistfully, as if she was waiting as long as she could to open it.†   (source)
  • Rosalie sighed, and when she spoke again her voice was different, the wistfulness gone.†   (source)
  • The actress watched them retire a little wistfully.†   (source)
  • You don't remember anything?" she said, a bit wistfully.†   (source)
  • I doubt you'll be lonely, down there," I said a little wistfully, because .†   (source)
  • "He was so young when he left," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "An adventure," Bran repeated wistfully.†   (source)
  • He smiled wistfully and released all of me but one hand.†   (source)
  • He grimaced and said wistfully, "It's what made me give up the good life on the road."†   (source)
  • I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.†   (source)
  • You don't have to leave," I said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I wish we could stay out in the country until then," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "My dad wanted to take me to Greece this summer," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "An inn," Ser Rodrik repeated wistfully.†   (source)
  • If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home.†   (source)
  • He smiled wistfully as he imagined Paul's amazement.†   (source)
  • "It was just a wish," said Penny wistfully.†   (source)
  • I wish I'd lived there," Jake said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I wish I had a good mean dog," said Arya wistfully.†   (source)
  • He stared wistfully at his departing friends.†   (source)
  • He held up his hand, pretending to hold one, and struck it wistfully with an imaginary wand.†   (source)
  • Maybe it was the wistfulness in her mother's voice, mixed with regret.†   (source)
  • No. Was that wistfulness she saw in the child's eyes?†   (source)
  • "Ammit the Devourer," Thoth said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Piper heard the wistfulness in his voice.†   (source)
  • "Yeah, we were something," she said, a touch of wistfulness entering her voice.†   (source)
  • "Not directly," said the domovoi wistfully "But his senior emissaries, certainly."†   (source)
  • Kate detected a wistfulness in his voice.†   (source)
  • I would understand the song, he thought wistfully.†   (source)
  • I suppose if you want to barge in there and gaze wistfully at her sleeping face, go right ahead.†   (source)
  • "I want to be a cheerleader," Nudge said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "I miss the food too," Kern said wistfully.†   (source)
  • She looked over at Jace, and there was a sort of wistfulness in her expression.†   (source)
  • "She reminds me of the young Billie Holiday," said Mr. Barry, wistfully.†   (source)
  • 'It must be nice to live like a vegetable,' he conceded wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Maybe we could just live with them," Nudge said wistfully.†   (source)
  • After a long silence, she asked simply, almost wistfully, "What is it that you're all doing here?†   (source)
  • "You know," Doc said wistfully, "sometimes I do feel a little guilt."†   (source)
  • Don't suppose you could do that," Armistead said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Looking wistfully at the poster, he pondered the damaged words: Do I dare disturb the universe?†   (source)
  • "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness.†   (source)
  • "Had Stannis won, all might have been different," Ronel Rivers said wistfully.†   (source)
  • There was that urban-dweller wistfulness in her voice.†   (source)
  • I've always wanted to order that coin machine that sorts things automatically," he said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Tyrion had noticed that one gazing wistfully at Shae more than once.†   (source)
  • I wistfully remembered this girl before she was born.†   (source)
  • "Your father is a great scholar," he said quietly, almost wistfully.†   (source)
  • Then he looked wistfully after the crowd.†   (source)
  • "Those were happier days," mused the yam wistfully.†   (source)
  • "So much has changed," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • "Over forty years," he answered with a trace of wistfulness.†   (source)
  • But you could see the wistfulness in their faces.†   (source)
  • 'It must be a very wonderful thing to have,' she said, half wistfully.†   (source)
  • "A good man is hard to find," she said wistfully.†   (source)
  • Beside me, Monica sighed wistfully in agreement.†   (source)
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