Like those repeated throughout, it is not an idle remark but carries the potential force of prophecy.

You made an idle remark and she swung a baton in your face?

It was not just an idle remark.

At the core of it all lay a trivial remark - an offhand comment that the younger man's wife was like her mother, idle.

They were an unusually taciturn brother and sister, unable to ex- change the most idle remarks.

Must our whole discourse be a continued series of gossipping stories and idle remarks?

In this case it was the clerk in the office who pointed the way with an idle remark.

That wasn't smart, when a bit of banter or any idle remark could have thrown you off.

Andy Warhol's statement that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes was not just an idle remark.

It was a genuine question, not an idle remark.