By comparison with many of his countrymen, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin seems almost monkish.
MaxMara has always been a no-nonsense brand with a focus on coats, but there was something almost monkish about the ultra-plain, finely cut outerwear over midcalf dresses.
His emotional edginess lead him to far more unpredictable, almost Monkish alternations of urgency and silence; his tone pulsated with passion and doubt.
His home had an almost monkish simplicity, illuminated and cheered by the queenly grace and candour of his wife, Madeline.
When serious money came in at last with "Animal Farm", releasing Orwell from day jobs, he took the toddler and a housekeeper to live on the remote tip of the Scottish island of Jura.The other side of Orwell's burning conscience was an almost monkish ability to cut himself off.
PASCAL LAMY, the European Union's outgoing trade commissioner, has an ascetic, almost monkish appearance and an impressive command of the byzantine complexities of trade policy.
But he displayed an almost monkish devotion to the job, until he gradually found his place as the guy who was always willing to help out, speaking in frenetic bursts, saying, "Yes, sir," and "Negative K, sir," and answering the phone with the refrain: "Firefighter Kevin Shea.
The mature prose of America's elder statesman of letters has the sheen, rhythm and simplicity of greatness: words written and rewritten in almost monkish seclusion.
The dominant force in Serkin's life was the German violinist Adolf Busch, a brilliant player who detested virtuoso showmanship and devoted himself in almost monkish fashion to the heights of the German chamber and solo repertory.
Grubby, shady, solitary, consumed by an almost monkish passion for his often perverse work, Stone is exactly the sort of guy you want in your corner if you ever end up in Naz's shoes and exactly the sort of guy you would never want to be.
