The name of Parma, one of the towns that I most longed to visit, after reading the Chartreuse , seeming to me compact and glossy, violet-tinted, soft, if anyone were to speak of such or such a house in Parma, in which I should be lodged, he would give me the pleasure of thinking that I was to inhabit a dwelling that was compact and glossy, violet-tinted, soft, and that bore no relation to the houses in any other town in Italy, since I could imagine it only by the aid of that heavy syllable of the name of Parma, in which no breath of air stirred, and of all that I had made it assume of Stendhalian sweetness and the reflected hue of violets.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Besides, as an honest man I ought to tell you that . .
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

He may invent his characters and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

True, he might in such a case rely on the kindness of Signor Torlonia.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

"I fell back against the wall and he came up to me, grinding his teeth, and, as I fell upon my knees, he hissed mad, incoherent words and curses at me.
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Their wars are throughout noble and generous, and carry as much excuse and fair pretence, as that human malady is capable of; having with them no other foundation than the sole jealousy of valour.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Mr. Peters went to him, and took him by the hand, and said, We are all glad to see you, sir; you are the happiest man in the world in a daughter; whom we never saw before to-day, but cannot enough admire.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

The sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around him merged in Rostóv’s mind into a single feeling of terror and pity for himself.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

She admitted that her former teacher, Miss Dearborn, might have mentioned it, but if so she had not remembered it.
— from New Chronicles of Rebecca by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Although the school that Dogen found was a branch of Lin-chi traceable back to the koan master Ta-hui, different from the fading school Eisai had encountered, Dogen later would denounce impartially the general run of all Ch'an masters he met in China.
— from The Zen Experience by Thomas Hoover

Before, however, I had time to feel cast down, I saw a ship making directly for the island, and not knowing whether it would contain friends or foes, I hid myself in the thick branches of a tree.
— from The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang

Arthur saw a silver bay, a mournful shore with a few houses huddled miserably in the distance, and bare hills without verdure or life.
— from The Art of Disappearing by John Talbot Smith

Was there anything peculiar in her manner in the course of the day?
— from Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains; or, A Christmas Success against Odds by Stella M. Francis

Such a man as Shelley will, as indeed his life abundantly proves, have more in common than not with the true unselfconscious believer.
— from Life and Habit by Samuel Butler

That the Thessalians had migrated into Thessaly from the Thesprôtid territory, is stated by Herodotus, [26] though he says nothing about time or circumstances.
— from History of Greece, Volume 02 (of 12) by George Grote

If sold to-morrow it will not fetch a third of the amount for which I have mortgaged it, and it is only by the generosity of Jonker Leopold that the sale can any longer be delayed.
— from Major Frank by A. L. G. (Anna Louisa Geertruida) Bosboom-Toussaint