In November I had already read this poem to my intimate friends, and soon afterwards to the Hiller set.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

[stoutly] I don't care whether she has or not: I have a right to say what I please. VIOLET.
— from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by Bernard Shaw

When the answers have been simply yes or no, I have always received them with caution.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

Nay, I had already returned the purse and the girdle to the baggage who brought them, that she might carry them back to him, and had given her a rough dismissal, but after, fearing she might keep them for herself and tell him that I had accepted them, as I hear women of her fashion do whiles, I called her back and took them, full of despite, from her hands and have brought them to you, so you may return them to him and tell him I want none of his trash, for that, thanks to God and my husband, I have purses and girdles enough to smother him withal.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

Naturally, I have always realized that you, and not I, must judge of the comparative importance of the demands from the Dardanelles and from France.
— from Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 by Ian Hamilton

"No; I have always read the papers when I could," said Stingaree, and suddenly he was smiling.
— from Stingaree by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

At the end of his visit he came to bid us farewell, and said to me: "Miss Nannie, I have a request to make of you, will you grant it?"
— from Old Plantation Days: Being Recollections of Southern Life Before the Civil War by N. B. (Nancy Bostick) De Saussure

Now I have already referred to the relation between the words of my text and those immediately preceding, as being in some sense one of opposition and contrast.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Mark by Alexander Maclaren

An unusual noise is heard; and round the bend glides a bark canoe with sound of human voices.
— from Ways of Wood Folk by William J. (William Joseph) Long

Last night, I heard a ring; then somebody speak my name; the voice struck upon me at once.
— from Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Volume II by Margaret Fuller

A ray of hope shot through Grace's sad fancies; if they were so near help, might not it have already reached the sufferers?
— from Gabriel Conroy by Bret Harte

"And now I have a request to make," said the latter gravely, turning to him slowly and scanning his features closely, as though he would read his character by that means.
— from With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

No individuals have a right to hazard the peace of the country or to violate its laws upon vague notions of altering or reforming governments in other states.
— from State of the Union Addresses (1790-2006) by United States. Presidents