Knowing this to be part of the rote response, I still began vaguely to resent these other, better men.

"Naw," Alan said, falling into the rote response from his proprietorship of the bookstore.

Asked about Alex, Dr. Terrace said he thought that what Alex was doing was "a rote response."

There was, of course, a time when Spock had explained it to the doctor, but the rote response was an admonishment to remember his human half.

It nodded for champagne and made rote responses to the attendant's rote queries.

What will that mean to people in the middle of their careers, beyond the rote response that they're going to have to work longer and save more?

"No." There was a rote response to that kind of question, and he repeated it now without enthusiasm.

The question was just short of being exasperated, about as far from the rote response of conditioning as you can get, and she knew well enough shed made at least one valid point.

Mr. Crispo, Mr. France writes, "saw in the world a Procrustean conspiracy - immutably rigid rules of expected conduct that required a rote response.

As I got out of the car, the exact same words came droning over the fence, like a rote response in a litany: "Bring yourself to Christ."