Posterity on reading my attack will rank me among the Zoyluses, and the humble apology I now make to the great man’s shades may not be read.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

" "If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

I wished her good morning, she opened her eyes, and leaning on her elbow, she smiled sweetly.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Was it Heathenism,—plurality of gods, mere sensuous representation of this Mystery of Life, and for chief recognized element therein Physical Force? Was it Christianism; faith in an Invisible, not as real only, but as the only reality; Time, through every meanest moment of it, resting on Eternity; Pagan empire of Force displaced by a nobler supremacy, that of Holiness?
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

they must give me some this time!”
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

To do this, I must govern my spirit.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Now,” said Augustine, drawing the basket up, “I’ll begin: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a fellow to hold two or three dozen of his fellow-worms in captivity, a decent regard to the opinions of society requires—” “I don’t see that you are growing more serious,” said Miss Ophelia.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

A fair number of the men who were born in the thirties had won names--Phillips Brooks; Bret Harte; Henry James; H. H. Richardson; John La Farge; and the list might be made fairly long if it were worth while; but from their school had sprung others, like Augustus St. Gaudens, McKim, Stanford White, and scores born in the forties, who counted as force even in the mental inertia of sixty or eighty million people.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

'I wish to goodness, Ma,' said Lavvy, throwing herself back among the cushions, with her arms crossed, 'that you'd loll a little.' 'How!'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

In this dialect there exist a good many songs, but a full collection of them has yet to be made.
— from Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) by Martinengo-Cesaresco, Evelyn Lilian Hazeldine Carrington, contessa

“You've got more sense than most of 'em.
— from King Coal : a Novel by Upton Sinclair

"You do not know who murdered Edgar, and you are trying to get my secret from me without paying for it.
— from The Crimson Cryptogram: A Detective Story by Fergus Hume

"You see," he went on hurriedly, "there have been a good many strange things that have happened to my horses lately."
— from The Social Gangster by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve

O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to these fields Where I may wallow in the lily beds Propos’d for the deserver!
— from The History of Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare

"These little wrinklings of the earth's crust at the foot of the great mountain systems are nature's puzzle-pieces for us," he remarked.
— from The King of Arcadia by Francis Lynde

“You admit, of course, the condition of your clothes?” said the justice of peace; “and you can’t deny the words you said just now to Gothard?” Michu, supplied with food by his wife, who was amazed at his coolness, was eating with the avidity of a hungry man.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

“Great muckle shilling, mamma.”
— from The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales (Vol. 2 of 2) by James Hogg