Here error is all in the not done, all in the diffidence that faltered. . .
(As a Briton, I declare an interest in modesty, diffidence, deference — qualities that exist only in the rose glow of the English memory).
There is, in this diffidence, a hint of the academic dread of the twice-said.
In its diffidence toward its surroundings, the station will reflect the tremendous popular ambivalence about the site; a mass graveyard that is now the linchpin in the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan.
But this movie, the director James Gray's fourth feature (after "Little Odessa," "The Yards" and "We Own the Night"), is not another low-key, closely observed study in bohemian diffidence.
The best writers born immediately after the war seem almost programmatically to disdain the grand, synthesizing ambitions of their elders (and also some of their juniors), trafficking in irony, diffidence and the cultivation of small quirks rather than large idiosyncrasies.
In view of his diffidence in First Principles, it seems more likely that this text is the work of Maximus, a second-century author to whom it is also attributed in our manuscripts.
Spacey dug around in Dexter, unveiling the wistful, Gatsbyish diffidence in the playboy; with Luthor, however, there is nothing to reveal.
In particular, Cera, in his articulate diffidence, reminds me of Fred MacMurray, the great underspoken ironist of studio days; and MacMurray, with his inescapably strong if soft-spoken persona, wasn't made for histrionic transformations either.
RICHARD BRODY: The best thing about 50/50 was Anna Kendrick's performance; she was like herself but more so; the hesitation and diffidence in her line readings, the pausing and searching in her gaze, was the movie's one true thing.
