A critic can call any poem ‘doggerel.’ That is no more than a slur. ‘Doggerel’ or ‘maudlin’ or ‘sappy’ or ‘sentimental’ is in the ear of the listener. By the by, ‘sentimental’ is okay as...

As a devil’s advocate Mr Neville was faultless. And yet, she knew, there was a flaw in his reasoning, just as there was a flaw in his ability to feel.

One of Sir Topher’s rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind.

I drive around the streetsan inch away from weeping,ashamed of my sentimentality andpossible love.

Anthropomorphism originally meant the attribution of human characteristics to God. It is curious that the word is now used almost exclusively to ascribe human characteristics–such as fidelity or altruism or pride, or emotions such as...

Normally, anything done in the name of ‘the kids’ strikes me as either slightly sentimental or faintly sinister—that redolence of moral blackmail that adheres to certain charitable appeals and certain kinds of politician. (Not for...

Metaphors are tiny saviors leading the way out of sentimentality, small disciples of Pound, urging “Say it new! Say it new!” It’s hard for emotion to feel flat if its language is suitably novel, to...

It is, therefore, a great source of virtue for the practiced mind to learn, bit by bit, first to change about in visible and transitory things, so that afterwards it may be possible to leave...

Sentimentality was used because other political avenues were closed, and authors hoped that through it they could bring about a political change that would fulfill the egalitarian promises of the Revolution. Real political venues were...

Nietzsche, an infinitely harder and more courageous intellect, was incapable of any such confusion of ideas; he seldom allowed sentimentality to turn him from the glaring fact.

In intertwining sentimentality, healing, narcissism, and authority, modern evangelicals give authority to those emotions themselves…The sentimental becomes evidence and authority in a world in which most evangelicals have given up intellectual pursuits and concerns over...

I think the main function of contemporary irony is to protect thespeaker from being interpreted as naive or sentimental.

No sentimentality, no romance, no false hope, no self-petting lies, merely that which is!

I’m not sentimental–I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know,is that the sentimental person thinks things will last–the romanticperson has a desperate confidence that they won’t.

For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis … [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother’s Day card. There was a horrible,...

It’s said that sport is the civilised society’s substitute for war, and also that the games we play as children are designed to prepare us for the realities of adult life. Certainly it’s true that...

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot...

She would roll up her sleeves and dispense with sentimentality, and do whatever blood-soaked, bad-smelling thing had to be done. She would become adept with axes.

…men are much softer than women, more sentimental. They cry at the movies and pretend not to. The male of the species is weak. He doesn’t tolerate pain well.

The cake had a trick candle that wouldn’t go out, so I didn’t get my wish. Which was just that it would always be like this, that my life could be a party just for...