That doesn’t surprise me; and he showed me his tooth; we had some coffee together.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse, His Pegasus, nor anything that 's his; Thou shalt not bear false witness like 'the Blues' (There 's one, at least, is very fond of this); Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose: This is true criticism, and you may kiss— Exactly as you please, or not,—the rod; If any person should presume to assert This story is not moral, first, I pray, That they will not cry out before they 're hurt, Then that they 'll read it o'er again, and say (But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert) That this is not a moral tale, though gay; Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show The very place where wicked people go.
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

She made her sit down by her on an ottoman, and began talking to her as amicably as if she had known her a long time.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

"I should have been sooner, miss," he said, "if it hadn't been for the weather."
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Why soak my handkerchief, wiping the blood off his head so that it may be evidence against me later?
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

said he; I see my hints are not thrown away upon you; and I beg pardon for being angry with you; and, for the future, will stay till I hear your defence, before I judge you.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

“I found my knife where I had placed it, under my pillow, and while feigning to sleep, my hand grasped the handle of it convulsively.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

The man has become grasping, avaricious, stingy, mean, hard.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

They go on for a while among clumps of willows and patches of vine, and then, suddenly and without any warning, cease and determine in some miry hollow or upon some bald knowe; and you have a short period of hope, then right-about face, and back the way you came!
— from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson

Malcolm felt a warm glow of exhilaration, which secretly moved him to astonishment, as he ran lightly up the long bare flights of stairs to his chambers.
— from Herb of Grace by Rosa Nouchette Carey

She blamed herself for ever having gone away, and told herself that she might have known what would happen.
— from The Adventures of Sally by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

They walked solemnly through the village street, Armitage pleased but anxious to return to the inn, Vincent thinking of Hetty, and vaguely wondering by what subtle means he could get her to love him, Hetty and Mrs. Armitage weighed down by the secret which had taken the sunshine out of both their lives.
— from Dr. Rumsey's Patient: A Very Strange Story by L. T. Meade

'Mid the glens and hills, in combats Where the blades of swordsmen meet, Has he fought with thee the Campbells, Mingling glory with defeat.
— from Memories of Canada and Scotland — Speeches and Verses by Argyll, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, Duke of

I bore it, and still live; and it is so much harder for me, because I have to bear it all alone.
— from The Fatal Glove by Clara Augusta

'One day, while he was resting after robbing a stoutish man, he put his gun on the ground and walked a little way from it, to see if the man whom he had robbed and bound was satisfied, or preferred to be shot rather than run the risk of not being found by anyone before he died of starvation.
— from Under St Paul's: A Romance by Richard Dowling

With this capital of three thousand pounds comfortably invested in consols, and with the interest of that sum of ten thousand pounds settled on his infant son, Mr. Hawkehurst began the world, in his new character of a husband and a father, very pleasantly.
— from Charlotte's Inheritance by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

"Was this before or after you saw Miss Heredith leave the dining-room?" "About ten minutes afterwards."
— from The Hand in the Dark by Arthur J. (Arthur John) Rees