Yet still there were religious sayings, sometimes repeated obsessively on every few metres of wall until, after many tenners, the writer grew tired.

She felt as if the gesture, repeated obsessively, was itself the answer, but in a language she did not speak.

The butt of many jokes is no doubt Mr. Aznar, whose thick-witted puppet obsessively repeats the phrase "Spain is doing well."

Pain flickers in her new songs, especially in a distortion-edged indie-rocker, "Phantom Mountain," where she obsessively repeats "I could not tell the truth" before adding "from a mirage."

"Power," she repeats obsessively, thrashing the tambourine in a two-beat groove.

Piecing it together with family members, I guessed that my father suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental illness that can compel people to obsessively repeat rituals.

They can also react to trauma by obsessively repeating joyless games that re-enact the event, rather than deny it.

He pushed his voice toward a fragile falsetto and, like Van Morrison, he obsessively repeated words and lines.

In a way, the Federal Government resembles a neurotic family that obsessively repeats the same pattern of damaging behavior, unable to recognize its own pathology and unable to change.

But the title that repeats obsessively across the painting's background seems urban enough: "4 Ever Alone."