My Dear Mr. Anagnos:—You cannot imagine how delighted I was to receive a letter from you last evening.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

As for you, little envious prigs, snarling bastards, puny critics, you’ll soon have railed your last; go hang yourselves, and choose you out some well-spread oak, under whose shade you may swing in state, to the admiration of the gaping mob; you shall never want rope enough.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

And four years later Emily says, ‘The Gondals still flourish bright as ever.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

¡Ojala fueran puestos en perpetuo olvido los abominables estudios y hábitos intelectuales introducidos por el desenfreno filosófico y las erradas doctrinas!
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

This hotel had already reached that stage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform smoking in the entry, supposed to stand for a hall-porter, and the cast-iron, slippery, dark, and disagreeable staircase, and the free and easy waiter in a filthy frock coat, and the common dining-room with a dusty bouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust, and disorder everywhere, and at the same time the sort of modern up-to-date self-complacent railway uneasiness of this hotel, aroused a most painful feeling in Levin after their fresh young life, especially because the impression of falsity made by the hotel was so out of keeping with what awaited them.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

"I don't believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burnt hair, old gowns, one glove apiece, and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them."
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Sūrajmall was first-cousin, not son of Uda, and it was his great-grandson, Bīka, who conquered the Kānthal and founded the town of Deolia at least fifty years later (Erskine ii. A. 197).]
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

"I don't believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old gowns, one glove apiece and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I am in your debt for your last exercise; Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

He often expressed regret at the number of traders whom he had cast into the sea, complaining, in particular, of one victim whom he had thrown overboard, who would never sink, but who for years long ever floated in his wake, and stared him in the face whenever he looked over his vessel's side.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 31: 1580-82 by John Lothrop Motley

“Oh, my darling!” cried the unhappy maiden, throwing herself into the arms of what she imagined to be her lover, “you do but joke in order to frighten your little Elise.”
— from The Captain of the Polestar, and Other Tales by Arthur Conan Doyle

I've been looking for you long enough.
— from Frédérique, vol. 1 by Paul de Kock

So, swift as light, aid and prevention hustled each other, all so quickly that a snapshot would hardly have registered the contest, until a click, faint yet loud enough to fill each heart with joy or anger told that the King's stick catching the ball fairly ere it fell had sent it away in a clear swooping flight.
— from A Prince of Dreamers by Flora Annie Webster Steel

You and I have only each other, and I couldn’t bear to be away from you long enough to go to a boarding school.”
— from Frances of the Ranges; Or, The Old Ranchman's Treasure by Amy Bell Marlowe

“Well, tales of murders aren't the things for young ladies' ears,” Mrs. Brown said primly.
— from A Little Bush Maid by Mary Grant Bruce

"How fresh you look!" exclaimed Mary, sitting up in bed and looking at her cousin admiringly.
— from Evenings at Donaldson Manor; Or, The Christmas Guest by Maria J. (Maria Jane) McIntosh