After a certain lapse of time, Clemenza, personified so often in their impassioned strains, became a real person to their southern imaginations, and a tomb was conveniently found which seemed to settle the matter without question.
— from Women of the Romance Countries (Illustrated) Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 6 (of 10) by John R. (John Robert) Effinger

It so connected itself in my mind with some sort of an "institution," as a great hospital or infirmary or "Dotheboys" school, where Smikes or incipient Smikes went daily to a restricted routine, and thrice daily, with the rest of imprisoned souls, to the special amount of grub and rations provided by some personal or impersonal Squeers, that I could not but at once reply to the person speaking of it that I should not like any such institution.
— from Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs by John Thomas Codman

There were the words he had read so many times: "The present system of interstellar travel is so grossly inefficient as to be virtually inoperable on an absolute level."
— from Starman's Quest by Robert Silverberg