work up enthusiasm

Since when have I had to work up enthusiasm?

"I guess it takes a weapons type like you to work up enthusiasm.

He was having trouble working up enthusiasm, but he went for a look anyway.

Was everybody downtown, working up enthusiasm?

Californians meanwhile could well be trying to work up enthusiasm for an erratic baseball team called The Los Angeles Mets.

He knocked back a beaker of mead, hummed a few bars of "Men of Harlech" to clear his throat and managed to work up enthusiasm anew.

It's just that everyone talks THE ROAD TO OMAHA 453 like that to work up enthusiasm for a project.

And Mr. Sheen, who, as a notorious onetime frequenter of prostitutes, might be expected to work up enthusiasm for this womanizer, paces through his role as if disgusted and soul-sick.

The publisher of The Tightwad Gazette newsletter, Amy Dacyczyn, can work up enthusiasm for almost any penny-pinching idea, including buying huge stuffed animals at yard sales and eviscerating them to make Halloween costumes.