digress

“The Madman’s Guide” has no chapter headings but many signposts such as “to digress further” and “at last to return to.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

If David Nihill was a philosopher, his credo might be “I digress, therefore I am.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026

I digress, though: This is a column about what is popular, not what is right and wrong!

From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2025

But I digress . . . and I do not want to leave you without these last words.

From Salon ● May 23, 2024

Since a Suggestion from the Master is a Command not unlike Holy Writ, I shall digress and comply at the same Time.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck

Its narrative offers few character sketches, jumps around in time and digresses into subjects that distract more than they enlighten.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026

He digresses to tell me the story, however, and it’s literally longer than this entire article’s word count.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026

To that end, the show, like “A Chorus Line,” digresses into the contestants’ personal lives.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2023

Every few pages of his “crime story,” Sjon digresses to a new tale with new players, like a postrider burning through horses.

From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2018

Here "the great game" digresses in another direction, that takes no account of Turkey.

From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21 The Recent Days (1910-1914) by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

And during a meeting in early January with oil and gas executives that was supposed to be about rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry, Trump apparently digressed yet again into talking about the ballroom.

From Slate ● Apr. 30, 2026

The audience of 1,600-plus, all primed to cheer the speakers’ adversarial views, found less and less to react to as the panel digressed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2023

Answering a question about her use of color, she digressed into an anecdote about Seurat and Monet: “When Seurat was asked what he thought of Monet, he said one word: ‘Intuition.’

From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2022

"I am not a Bravo executive, so I don’t think I can speak to this on," she digressed.

From Fox News ● Oct. 14, 2021

But let us return to the point we digressed from.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

Elliptical, digressing, self-interrupting, parenthesizing, Herzen wrote as he spoke, in a torrent of ideas, reminiscences, and literary and historical allusions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

But then Will spoils the effect by digressing into a jarring non sequitur:

From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2025

This was a comfortable spot for him, though he seemed, in a faded red T-shirt with a few holes in the torso, not entirely comfortable there, apologizing often for rambling, pausing, digressing.

From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2022

But when I read it, I realized all the things I thought were my flaws — the digressing, the self-contradiction — in Bernhard that was the writing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2022

He was the first among the Romans who displayed the distinguishing talents of an orator, by embellishing his subject,—by digressing, amplifying, entreating, and employing what are called topics, or common-places of discourse.

From History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Volume II by John Dunlop