“Well, if that’s the way I’m agreed, but I don’t take no stock in it.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

It ought to have melted; for one did not require winter clothing in that atmosphere: but it did not melt; the inside of the pipe was too cold.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

When I reflect on this, I say, I fall back into diffidence and scepticism, and suspect that an hypothesis, so obvious, had it been a true one, would, long ere now, have been received by the unanimous suffrage and consent of mankind.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

Accordingly, Leonella left Madrid, sincerely grieved at her Sister's illness, and giving some few sighs to the memory of the amiable but inconstant Don Christoval.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

If that love affair had gone on, it would have bored me to death; but it didn't go on; for the next thing that happened was that Rachel cut me because she found out that I had told you.
— from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw

He was warm from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting eagerly for him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and play up to him, anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it always had been in days of old before misfortune fell upon him.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

For my own part, when I am in Town, for want of these Opportunities, I exercise myself an Hour every Morning upon a dumb Bell that is placed in a Corner of my Room, and pleases me the more because it does every thing I require of it in the most profound Silence.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I dare say he met his old Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Three days after, M. de Calsabigi called on me; and after receiving him in my best style I said that if I had not called on him it was only because I did not wish to be troublesome.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

'I lied to you because I dared not divulge the truth to anyone,' she said.
— from Shadows in Zamboula by Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard

I'd not like to be so unadvanced as to deny witches and ghosts, but I do think that there never have been witches and ghosts like those of popular supposition.
— from The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort

The niggers bring it down from the Western Soudan, and I believe they're ostrich quills.
— from For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

Du bist mein Vater’s Sohn!” This piece of family information, was unquestionably new to me, but I disengaged myself from my brother’s arms, curious to know the meaning of such enthusiasm.
— from Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands by Charles James Lever

I don't know whether it is true or not, but I do know that they did not run as quickly as we wished them to do.
— from Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom by Trumbull White

At noon, Harry Ethall came to me and went along with Mr. Maylard by coach as far as Salsbury Court, and there we set him down, and we went to the Clerks, where we came a little too late, but in a closet we had a very good dinner by Mr. Pinkny's courtesy, and after dinner we had pretty good singing, and one, Hazard, sung alone after the old fashion, which was very much cried up, but I did not like it.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 02: January 1659-1660 by Samuel Pepys

“But I don't think you was,” declared Harley.
— from Tales of Chinatown by Sax Rohmer

Dorothy raised the stout pole high above her head with both hands, and, with all the strength that was in her supple frame, brought it down crash upon the brute's head.
— from The Rising of the Red Man A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion by John Mackie