My destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner; but if my torturer should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces, he would surely find other, and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I'll not be sentimental or dissatisfied, mother; I know I'm a silly little girl, and I'll stay with you till I'm fit to take care of myself.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

M. de Merveilleux, interpreting secretary to the embassy, said, that his friend, M. Godard, a Swiss colonel, in the service of France, wanted a person to be with his nephew, who had entered very young into the service, and made no doubt that I should suit him.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Oh, M. de Morcerf,” interrupted Morrel.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

In two days more I must have died.
— from Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798) by William Wordsworth

He used the dialectic method invented by his master Socrates.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way Of starved people.
— from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Drop me in the park, will you?
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

"Because I ran away from a profligate young husband, who [175] had decoyed me into an illegal marriage—illegal for me, but sufficiently binding to have put you in the penitentiary for a bi—" "Don't say it, my dear; don't.
— from Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter by Lawrence L. Lynch

[Pg 87] sir—I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary life; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it, and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it.
— from The Genius of Scotland; or, Sketches of Scottish Scenery, Literature and Religion by Robert Turnbull

They were desperate men in a private quarrel, particular when they could come round a corner, and when women were concerned; but as for showing honest fight, he would sooner come across three of them, than one good Irish murderer."
— from Clara Vaughan, Volume 2 (of 3) by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in perfect unconsciousness.
— from Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by Charles Dickens

But that great historian, Alexandre Dumas, takes a far more friendly view of the king’s studies, and, in ‘La Dame de Monsoreau,’ introduces us to a learned monarch.
— from Books and Bookmen by Andrew Lang

No matter how pleasant one's companions are in an English first-class compartment, their enforced proximity makes one heartily sick of them before many hours have elapsed; while a conversation with Daisy Miller in the American parlour car is rendered doubly delightful by the consciousness that you may at any moment transfer yourself and your bons mots to Lydia Blood at the other end of the car, or retire with Gilead P. Beck to the snug little smoking-room.
— from The Land of Contrasts: A Briton's View of His American Kin by James F. (James Fullarton) Muirhead

Nothing could better illustrate the extreme unwisdom of not standing to fight earlier: defeat at Vittoria meant the loss of everything, and the dispositions made invited defeat.
— from Battles of English History by H. B. (Hereford Brooke) George

He never did mention it to me.
— from Warren Commission (08 of 26): Hearings Vol. VIII (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission