Example sentences of "[pron] had never been [adj] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | I had never been awake in it as early as that before . |
| 2 | On the plus side was the fact that the Foreign Office and the years spent in Cabinet were a good apprenticeship , while in addition I had never been afraid of taking decisions . |
| 3 | I had never been happier . |
| 4 | The nightmares stopped instantly after this explanation , and I was able to give lectures , stand up for myself and speak in public — all of which I had never been able to do before . ’ |
| 5 | I had never been able to understand them then , but I sympathized with them now . |
| 6 | I had never been able to do that , not with such unselfconscious pleasure , perhaps because deep down I had resented his existence which was preventing me doing all the marvellous things I had intended to do in the world . |
| 7 | I had never been able to persuade her to accept any money for her kindness and tried to reciprocate by doing any small repairs she needed to her flat , and by supplying occasional tickets for the theatre , for the tennis at Wimbledon , and for the races at Epsom . |
| 8 | Even when she was well , I had never been able to relax because I never knew from one day to the next how I was going to find her . |
| 9 | I had never been fitter or stronger . |
| 10 | And among the unexpected discoveries in the ‘ skiploads of junk ’ at Calke was a state bed with all its Chinese hangings , which had never been unwrapped and was therefore in mint condition ( valued at £1 million at least ) . |
| 11 | The class of people for whom this may have been of paramount importance was not the traditional aristocracy which had never been involved in work , having merely inherited their estates , but those termed the nouveaux riches , the use of which term implies a much more direct involvement in the work process as the basis for capital accumulation . |
| 12 | It would mean telling her everything — and telling the full truth about himself had never been easy . |
| 13 | She had never been involved in his business and as it grew , saw considerably less of her husband . |
| 14 | Derek was confident that she had never been involved in anything subversive in her life or , for that matter , anything which was not completely dignified and fully reputable . |
| 15 | To tell Luke the truth , somehow force him to accept that she had never been involved with Florian in the way he imagined , might just possibly put an end to his — his persecution of her . |
| 16 | The Vale of Blackmoor was her only world , and she had never been far outside the valley . |
| 17 | She had never been close to one before , and it was very big . |
| 18 | Since that time , however , she had never been well . |
| 19 | Aunt Sophie woke suddenly , eyes clear , as though she had never been asleep . |
| 20 | And she had never been that . |
| 21 | Was it true , what Maria said , that she had never been fair to Hester ? |
| 22 | She had never been ashamed of her body before — why should she let him make her feel this way ? |
| 23 | At home she had never been aware of it . |
| 24 | She thought she had never been happier , not even in Seville , which was peculiar because in Seville they had been free . |
| 25 | She had never been afraid to look straightly at whatever fortune sent her , to map its every feature , and acknowledge it for what it was . |
| 26 | She had never been able to stand against those pale , cold eyes , that flat , unimpassioned voice . |
| 27 | She had never been able to equal her sister 's matchless beauty , she knew , but at least she presented the world with a fair imitation of it . |
| 28 | Riding one of Jennie 's fabulous dressage schoolmasters , Katharine was able to experience a whole host of dressage movements from flying changes to pirouettes that she had never been able to try before . |
| 29 | From somewhere in the back Cecilia could hear that sound she had never been able to identify and had not liked to ask about , a regular screeching as made by a bird in a zoo . |
| 30 | In a recent essay she claims to have had a strong sense of déjá-vu upon first reading theories of post-structuralism and postmodernism , for though she had never been able to articulate them clearly in conceptual form , she had discovered many of the concepts these theories present through writing fiction ( 1991a:165 ) . |