For all his formidable physical gifts, no one ever confused Norman with Jack Nicklaus when it came to the mental side of the game.

That adolescent enthusiasm, well tended since sputnik, reinforces his formidable literary gifts - for metaphor, for narrative and everything between.

Roger Kimball of the Wall Street Journal praised his "formidable narrative gift and a great deal of common sense."

He continued to display his formidable gift for physical comedy; for example, in one shot, he briefly assumes a reclining position while seated on a chair.

Yet you do not attain the international prominence of a Zubin Mehta without having formidable gifts.

Bloodaxe, a limber, strikingly handsome young Texan with shoulder-length blond hair, mirrored sunglasses, a tie, and a formidable gift of gab, did the talking.

This process began with a phase of intense and extended reflection, in which he could deploy his formidable gifts of intellectual curiosity and comprehension.

But the literary judgments she does venture are often primitive: Crane had "an eye for the telling detail," "a formidable innate gift with words."

The emotional intensity of the work - a quality sometimes obscured by Ms. Latzky's formidable physical gifts as a dancer - is a surprise, too.

It must have been the barrier, she realized; somehow the awesome psionic energy of the galactic barrier had amplified the Betazoid's already formidable mental gifts.