"Off-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gone to a vast amount of labor for nothing," he remarked, as Mr. Underwood concluded. "I could have given you that much information off-hand. You have not lived up to your part of the contract, and I see no reason why I should be expected to fulfil mine. You promised me your daughter in marriage, and then ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... nothing is left at last but a condensed extract, an evaporated residuum, an almost empty name, in short, what is called a hollow abstraction. The only characters in the eighteenth century exhibiting any life are the off-hand sketches, made in passing and as if contraband, by Voltaire, Baron de Thundertentronk and Milord Watthen, the lesser figures in his stories, and five or six portraits of secondary rank, Turcaret, Gil Blas, Marianne, Manon Lescaut, Rameau, and Figaro, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... These were off-hand answers, which it might perhaps be hardly fair to have recorded, had they been of persons of less eminent talent: and it adds to the curiosity of the circumstance to mention, that I believe Dr. Wollaston's reason for supposing no union ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... spoke to him, or he to them, he would correct, transform, and vary in several ways. Hence it was, that he was looked upon as a person of no great natural genius, but one who owed all the power and ability he had in speaking to labor and industry. He was very rarely heard to speak off-hand, but though he were by name frequently called upon by the people, as he sat in the assembly, yet he would not rise unless he had previously considered the subject, and come prepared for it. So that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against him; ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... a button what we call it," Angelica decided off-hand, out of her own inner consciousness. "But you would not like us to be either 'con' or 'per,' would you?" she ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
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