The word “all” can be a pronoun, adjective, or adverb meaning the whole amount, every one, or entirely. Writers use it to emphasize completeness, inclusivity, or totality. The examples below are drawn from authentic works to show how “all” appears in real writing.
Real Sentences for All
Nothing at all that I know touches it.
Source: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
8 words, 38 characters
We all loved him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
13 words, 70 characters
It would grow up to be a man, a human soul, with a personality all its own, a will of its own!
Source: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
22 words, 94 characters
As to the details of his life during these years he was very reticent, in fact he would not talk of them at all.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
24 words, 112 characters
I am not given to needless worrying, but the more I tried to convince myself that all was well with Powell, and that the dots I had seen on his trail were antelope or wild horses, the less I was able to assure myself.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
44 words, 217 characters
There was surely a saloon on the corner—perhaps on all four corners, and some in the middle of the block as well; and each one stretched out a hand to him—each one had a personality of its own, allurements unlike any other.
Source: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44 words, 225 characters
All in the forecastle presently signified their intention of submitting, and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then thrown on their backs, together with the first six—there being in all, of the crew who were not concerned in the mutiny, twenty-seven.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
43 words, 258 characters
The morning of Powell’s departure was, like nearly all Arizona mornings, clear and beautiful; I could see him and his little pack animals picking their way down the mountainside toward the valley, and all during the morning I would catch occasional glimpses of them as they topped a hog back or came out upon a level plateau.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
57 words, 325 characters
He seemed always to be laughing; and he entered into the sports of the children with the same hearty good fellowship he displayed toward those pastimes in which the men and women of his own age indulged; or he would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old grandmother with stories of his strange, wild life in all parts of the world.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
64 words, 339 characters
He strongly advised me, among others, to prepare at once a full account of what I had seen and undergone, and trust to the shrewdness and common sense of the public—insisting, with great plausibility, that however roughly, as regards mere authorship, my book should be got up, its very uncouthness, if there were any, would give it all the better chance of being received as truth.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
67 words, 382 characters
Upon my return to the United States a few months ago, after the extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and elsewhere, of which an account is given in the following pages, accident threw me into the society of several gentlemen in Richmond, VA, who felt deep interest in all matters relating to the regions I had visited, and who were constantly urging it upon me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the public.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
77 words, 423 characters
More examples coming soon.
