“Pontellier,” said the Doctor, after a moment's reflection, “let your wife alone for a while.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin

She looks rather like you, Mary—not as you look now but as you looked when you came here.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

She does not know the charm of your red lips, your fair face, nor see how soft your eyes are....
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

“Truly, my daughter,” replied he with a smile, “you are all you boast of being, excepting one thing; I will not too hastily tell you which, but would rather leave you to guess it.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present age and those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—Wish expressed for the union of the characteristic merits of both XVII Examination of the tenets peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth— Rustic life (above all, low and rustic life) especially unfavourable to the formation of a human diction-The best parts of language the product of philosophers, not of clowns or shepherds—Poetry essentially ideal and generic— The language of Milton as much the language of real life, yea, incomparably more so than that of the cottager XVIII Language of metrical composition, why and wherein essentially different from that of prose—Origin and elements of metre —Its necessary consequences, and the conditions thereby imposed on the metrical writer in the choice of his diction XIX Continuation—Concerning the real object, which, it is probable, Mr. Wordsworth had before him in his critical preface—Elucidation and application of this XX The former subject continued—The neutral style, or that common to Prose and Poetry, exemplified by specimens from Chaucer, Herbert, and others XXI Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals XXII The characteristic defects of Wordsworth's poetry, with the principles from which the judgment, that they are defects, is deduced—Their proportion to the beauties—For the greatest part characteristic of his theory only SATYRANE'S LETTERS XXIII Critique on Bertram XXIV Conclusion So wenig er auch bestimmt seyn mag, andere zu belehren, so wuenscht er doch sich denen mitzutheilen, die er sich gleichgesinnt weis, (oder hofft,) deren Anzahl aber in der Breite der Welt zerstreut ist; er wuenscht sein Verhaeltniss zu den aeltesten Freunden dadurch wieder anzuknuepfen, mit neuen es fortzusetzen, und in der letzten Generation sich wieder andere fur seine uebrige Lebenszeit zu gewinnen.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

‘That’s a bad business, indeed,’ said the engine-driver reflectively. ‘Lost your money—and can’t get home—and got some kids, too, waiting for you, I dare say?’ ‘Any amount of ‘em,’ sobbed Toad.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Such a procession formed of the fairest beauties of France would be an indecent spectacle; but let it consist of Roman ladies, you will all gaze with the eyes of the Volscians and feel with the heart of Coriolanus.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You know, I—I rather like you."
— from Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment by George Gibbs

"Did I not read last year in the Intelligence that you were agitating yourself confoundedly in order to secure some great financial advantage by altering the date of the despatch of bullion to Portugal?"
— from The Passionate Elopement by Compton MacKenzie

Your heart belongs to your God and to your people, and the man whom you wed must be ready, like yourself, to serve both; for two must be one in marriage, and if the highest aim of one is not also that of the other, they will remain two till the end.
— from Joshua — Volume 2 by Georg Ebers

The two old people sat gazing kindly on me, and, when I had finished, the man said: "Yes, we have a son in the army; he went to Russia last year, and we have not since heard from him.
— from The Conscript: A Story of the French war of 1813 by Erckmann-Chatrian

"Do you suppose that means the clever little Russian dancer who was in the 'Revue' last year?"
— from The Social Gangster by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve

And he also started receiving letters, you know, and no books, maybe pamphlets, you know, little—like church, things we get from church, you know, but it wasn't a church.
— from Warren Commission (08 of 26): Hearings Vol. VIII (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission