Sometimes a man kills the dearest thing he loves, they say.

But I called her this, and other and dearer things, in my thoughts only.

The day before, he'd given up the two dearest things in his life, and he had no patience left for Riley.

"But the dearest thing is how their faces look like they're smilin'."

She was the dearest thing in all creation, Lewis.

"You have done the dearest thing that anyone has ever done for me in my entire life," she said.

Four thousand dollars for the dearest thing in my life!

He wrote that "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me."

If I heard correctly, under the circumstances that might have been the dearest thing you've ever said to me.

The land is the dearest thing that we have.