Example sentences of "[adv] he had [be] [adj] " in BNC.

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1 Perhaps because he spent so much of his time alone , he told me all about his wife , his two children , the home they had bought in Sanderstown , how long he had been married , where the children went to school — all the details of life in a town of about 60,000 people .
2 He wondered how long he had been silent .
3 If only he had been old and fat and balding …
4 But perhaps he had been tired , and what with hearing so much about the wretched Monument …
5 Perhaps he had been stupid , but had he actually done any damage ?
6 Perhaps he had been arrogant , and certainly he had been imperious .
7 Perhaps he had been bored , perhaps he simply had n't believed in the danger .
8 Perhaps he had been wrong ?
9 Perhaps he had been surprised to be greeted by an adult who did n't either admonish or cross-examine him .
10 So he had been churlish to Carol after all .
11 Where once he had been beautiful now he was hideous ; where once he had been mighty , now he was maimed .
12 Where once he had been beautiful now he was hideous ; where once he had been mighty , now he was maimed .
13 Where once he had been fair-spoken now his voice was horrible , forced out by ravaged lungs through a ruined throat .
14 He said later he had been unaware they were on the list of defaulters .
15 Formerly he had been prone to pessimism , full of gloomy prognoses about over-population and wars , which would prevent mankind from ever fulfilling its dream of colonising other planets .
16 The shadows had lengthened , he thought , so that probably he had been right and it was towards evening .
17 For some time now he had been certain that he had at last evolved a diction appropriate both to the requirements of classical epic and to the subtleties of the alchemical process .
18 So far he had been able to maintain a claim to even-handedness on the grounds that he treated both sides , Moslems and Copt , with equal severity .
19 He was often overcome with temptation when faced with such delights as chicken dumplings and ice-cream and treacle suet pudding , and so far he had been lucky .
20 So far he had been quiet , staring into the darkness , though keeping a careful eye on Sir John .
21 A few years ago he had been one of the best-paid dancers in Flamenco .
22 And ten years ago he had been hurt worst of all when the Zionist Air Force , the E-16s and the E-15s , had come to Tuwaithah out of the setting sun to put down 16 tons of explosive ordnance onto the Osirak reactor .
23 Latterly he had been involved in eel fishing and had been seeking a place to keep his eels alive and fresh .
24 Luckily he had been one of those we had briefed and he remembered the name .
25 Two days earlier he had been driving troop carriers at Kuchino , one of the KGB 's training centres outside Moscow , and now he 'd been asked to drive for General Benin no less .
26 Sometimes he had been able to fit the frames back and push in the lenses ; not this time .
27 Harking back to ‘ the first case — that of the man whose little boat capsized when he was twenty years old , ’ he said that then he had been prepared to give but afraid to take .
28 Grudgingly , Brian was forced to say that he had always thought it odd , but if reticence about her past was the way his wife wanted it , then he had been prepared to accept the situation .
29 But then he had been wrong about his eldest son .
30 She had seen Guy fight before at the river crossing , but then he had been quick and efficient .
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