Sentence examples for have pretensions from inspiring English sources

It is an appalling regime, a racket run by gangsters – but it does, unnervingly, have pretensions to some of the attributes of a nation state.

And this for the mere fact of being a Romanian, even if I myself have pretensions to civilised behaviour and respect.

I have pretensions to be a composer, and hope to be as successful a composer as Anthony Burgess, if not less so.

Sure, they have pretensions to adequacy with their recent ascent to chair the UN Security Council, but if the new prime minister can make jokes about sexy women and consider it an effective communications strategy, why can't two developers?

Yet, not for the first time in these troubled years since 9/11, one wonders how the US can have pretensions to being the world's policeman, when it doesn't even police its own citizens with impartiality.

"He said," Mr. Jacobi recalled, " 'If you have pretensions of being a leading actor you must learn how to take a curtain call.' " This may seem an odd sort of inhibition for an actor.

I have pretension enough to think that writing should have its own authority".

He had pretensions in that direction.

Daniel Peirce, who built it around 1690, had pretensions of nobility.

The exact moment when pop started having pretensions to "art".

The England that once had pretensions to govern this glorious tongue is gone.