Sentence examples for perfunctory quality from inspiring English sources

Human figures often have a seemingly perfunctory quality when compared with the nobility of animals.

Yet the illusion of her dancing was spoiled too often by the brittleness and almost perfunctory quality of her phrasing.

In this analysis, Weiner's failure to receive critical recognition is not an implicit judgment of, say, the perfunctory quality of some descriptive passages, or of the brittle mean-spiritedness that colors some character sketches.

The band's performance had a relaxed, almost perfunctory quality; it was neither as rousing nor as menacing as the single, and whatever power it mustered was absorbed by the punchy enthusiasms of the crowd.

There is a perfunctory quality to his "what".

There is a kind of perfunctory, dutiful quality to this part of Teachout's tale; where Armstrong's brilliance is beyond dispute, Teachout doesn't seem fully engaged.

As a result "Roads" has a decidedly improvisatory air: it lacks the obsessive quality that Mr. McMurtry himself says distinguishes the best travel writing and it often suffers, like "Flim Flam," his 1987 book on Hollywood, from a curiously perfunctory tone.

"It has a perfunctory-real quality -- so real that it's abstract and ironic".

These scenes have a perfunctory, tacked on quality, and Mr. Caviezel's face, which is pleasant but vacuous at the Last Supper, for example, does nothing to add to their power.

Though not all of those qualities are obvious, Mr. Atkins plays the character with a perfunctory swagger.

But the quality of counseling varies widely, from perfunctory to extremely thorough and useful.