Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, Grenville Kleiser [learn to read books TXT] 📗

from clouds

Your blood is red like wine

Your charms lay like metals in a mine

Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake

Your eyes as blue as violets

Your eyes they were green and gray like an April day

Your frail fancies are swallowed up, like chance flowers flung upon the river's current

Your hair was golden as tints of sunrise

Your heart is as dry as a reed

Your locks are like the raven

Your love shall fall about me like sweet rain

Your step's like the rain to summer vexed farmer

Your thoughts are buzzing like a swarm of bees

Your tongue is like a scarlet snake

Your voice had a quaver in it just like the linnet [linnet = small finch]

Youth like a summer morn

SECTION IX CONVERSATIONAL PHRASES A

A most extraordinary idea!

A thousand hopes for your success

Accept my best wishes

All that is conjecture

Allow me to congratulate you

An unfortunate comparison, don't you think?

And even if it were so?

And how am I to thank you?

And in the end, what are you going to make of it?

And yet the explanation does not wholly satisfy me

Apparently I was wrong

Are we wandering from the point?

Are you a trifle—bored?

Are you fully reconciled?

Are you not complicating the question?

Are you prepared to go to that length?

Are you still obdurate? [obdurate = Hardened in wrongdoing; stubbornly impenitent]

As it happens, your conjecture is right

Assuredly I do

At first blush it may seem fantastic

B

Banish such thoughts

But are you not taking a slightly one-sided point of view?

But consider for a moment

But I look at the practical side

But I wander from my point

But now I'll confide something to you

But perhaps I'm hardly fair when I say that

But seriously speaking, what is the use of it?

But surely that is inconsistent

But that's a tremendous hazard

But the thing is simply impossible

But there's one thing you haven't said

But, wait, you haven't heard the end

But what do you yourself think about it?

But who could foresee what was going to happen?

But you are open to persuasion?

But you do not know for certain

But you must tell me more

By a curious chance, I know it very well

By no means desirable, I think

C

Can I persuade you?

Can you imagine anything so horrible?

Certain circumstances make it undesirable

Certainly not, if it displeases you

Certainly, with the greatest pleasure

Come, where's your sense of humor?

Consult me when you want me—at any time

D

Decidedly so

Dine with me to-morrow night?—if you are free?

Do I presume too much?

Do I seem very ungenerous?

Do not misunderstand me

Do not the circumstances justify it?

Don't be so dismal, please

Don't delude yourself

Don't let me encroach on your good nature

Don't think I am unappreciative of your kindness

Do you attach any particular meaning to that?

Do you know, I envy you that

Do you know what his chief interests are now?

Do you mind my making a suggestion?

Do you press me to tell?

Do you really regard him as a serious antagonist?

Do you think there is anything ominous in it?

Does it please you so tremendously?

Does it seem incredible?

E

Either way is perplexing

Eminently proper, I think

Everyone looks at it differently

Excuse my bluntness

F

Fanciful, I should say

For the simplest of reasons

Forgive me if I seem disobliging

Fortunate, to say the least

Frankly, I don't see why it should

Frugal to a degree

Fulsome praise, I call it

G

Give me your sympathy and counsel

Glorious to contemplate

Good! that is at least something

Gratifying, I am sure

H

Happily there are exceptions to every rule

Has it really come to that?

Have I incurred your displeasure?

Have you any rooted objection to it?

Have you anything definite in your mind?

Have you reflected what the consequences might be to yourself?

He does me too much honor

He feels it acutely

He has a queer conception of the proprieties

He is a poor dissembler [dissemble = conceal behind a false appearance]

He is anything but obtuse

He is so ludicrously wrong

He is the most guileless of men

He was so extremely susceptible

He writes uncommonly clever letters

Heaven forbid that I should wound your sensibility

His sense of humor is unquenchable

How amiable you are to say so

How can I tell you how much I have enjoyed it all?

How can I thank you?

How can you be so unjust?

How delightful to meet you

How does the idea appeal to you?

How droll you are!

How extraordinary!

How intensely interesting!

How perfectly delightful!

How utterly abominable

How very agreeable this is!

How very interesting

How very surprising

How well you do it!

However, I should like to hear your views

Human nature interests me very much indeed

I

I admire your foresight

I admit it most gratefully

I agree—at least, I suppose I do

I agree that something ought to be done

I always welcome criticism so long as it is sincere

I am absolutely bewildered

I am afraid I am not familiar enough with the subject

I am afraid I cannot suggest an alternative

I am afraid I've allowed you to tire yourself

I am afraid I must confess my ignorance

I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist

I am always glad to do anything to please you

I am anxious to discharge the very onerous debt I owe you

I am appealing to your sense of humor

I am at your service

I am bound to secrecy

I am compelled to, unluckily

I am curious to learn what his motive was

I am deeply flattered and grateful

I am delighted to hear you say so

I am dumb with admiration

I am entirely at your disposal

I am extremely glad you approve of it

I am far from believing the maxim

I am fortunate in being able to do you a service

I am glad to be able to think that

I am glad to have had this talk with you

I am glad to say that I have entirely lost that faculty

I am glad you can see it in that way

I am glad you feel so deeply about it

I am giving you well-deserved praise

I am going to make a confession

I am grateful for your good opinion

I am honestly indignant

I am, I confess, a little discouraged

I am in a chastened mood

I am inclined to agree with you

I am incredulous

I am indebted to you for the suggestion

I am listening—I was about to propose

I am lost in admiration

I am luckily disengaged to-day

I am more grieved than I can tell you

I am naturally overjoyed

I am not a person of prejudices

I am not an alarmist

I am not as unreasonable as you suppose

I am not at all in the secret of his ambitions

I am not capable of unraveling it

I am not going into sordid details

I am not going to let you evade the question

I am not going to pay you any idle compliments

I am not impervious to the obligations involved

I am not in sympathy with it

I am not in the least surprised

I am not inquisitive

I am not prepared to say

I am not sure that I can manage it

I am not vindictive

I am overjoyed to hear you say so

I am perfectly aware of what I am saying

I am persuaded by your candor

I am quite convinced of that

I am quite discomfited

I am quite interested to see what you will do

I am quite ready to be convinced

I am rather of the opinion that I was mistaken

I am ready to make great allowances

I am really afraid I don't know

I am really gregarious

I am sensible of the flattery

I am seriously annoyed with myself about it

I am so glad you think that

I am so sorry—so very sorry

I am sorry to disillusionize you

I am sorry to interrupt this interesting discussion

I am sorry to say it is impossible

I am speaking plainly

I am still a little of an idealist

I am suppressing many of the details

I am sure it sounds very strange to you

I am sure you could pay me no higher compliment

I am sure you will hear me out

I am surprised, I confess

I am sustained by the prospect of a good dinner

I am vastly obliged to you

I am vastly your debtor for the information

I am very far from being a fanatic

I am very glad of this opportunity

I am very grateful—very much flattered

I am wholly in agreement with you

I am willing to accept all the consequences

I am wonderfully well

I am wondering if I may dare ask you a very personal question?

I am your creditor unawares

I anticipate your argument

I appreciate your motives

I assure you it is most painful to me

I assure you my knowledge of it is limited

I bear no malice about that

I beg your indulgence

I beg your pardon, but you take it too seriously

I brazenly confess it

I can easily understand your astonishment

I can explain the apparent contradiction

I can find no satisfaction in it

I can hardly agree with you there

I can never be sufficiently grateful

I can only tell you the bare facts

I can scarcely accept the offer

I can scarcely boast that honor

I can scarcely imagine anything more disagreeable

I can sympathize with you

I cannot altogether acquit myself of interested motives

I cannot explain it even to myself

I cannot find much real satisfaction in it

I cannot forbear to press my advantage

I cannot imagine what you mean

I cannot precisely determine

I can't pretend to make a jest of what I'm going to say

I cannot say definitely at the moment

I cannot say that in fact it is always so

I cannot see how you draw that conclusion

I cannot thank you enough for all your consideration

I compliment you on your good sense

I confess, I find it difficult

I could ask for nothing better

I could never forgive myself for that

I dare say your intuition is quite right

I decline to commit myself beforehand

I detest exaggeration

I didn't mean that—exactly

I do not comprehend your meaning

I don't deny that it is interesting

I don't doubt it for a moment

I do not doubt the sincerity of your arguments

I do not exactly understand you

I do not feel sure that I entirely share your views

I don't feel that it is my business

I do not find it an unpleasant subject

I don't insist on your believing me

I don't justify my presumption

I don't know quite why you should say that

I don't know that I can do that

I don't know when I have heard anything so lamentable

I don't know why you should be displeased

I don't make myself clear, I see

I don't pretend to explain

I don't see anything particularly wonderful in it

I don't underrate his kindness

I don't want to disguise that from you

I don't want to exaggerate

I don't want to seem critical

I doubt the truth of that saying

I endorse it, every word

I entirely approve of your plan

I fancy it's just that

I fear I cannot help