The long, insufferably hot, wearisome days, beautiful languorous evenings and stifling nights, and the whole manner of living, when from morning to night one is at a loss to fill up the useless hours, and the persistent thought that she was the prettiest young woman in the town, and that her youth was passing and being wasted, and Laevsky himself, though honest and idealistic, always the same, always lounging about in his slippers, biting his nails, and wearying her with his caprices, led by degrees to her becoming possessed by desire, and as though she were mad, she thought of nothing else day and night.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

In fact, she talked of nothing else; didn’t appear to know anything that was going on in the world, and never read any newspaper except the Mummers’ Mouthpiece .
— from Unvarnished Tales by William Mackay

The letters p, i, e, r, r, e convey the idea of a stone to a Frenchman as readily as s, t, o, n, e do to ourselves.
— from Essays on Life, Art and Science by Samuel Butler

"Dar ain' but one thing dat'll quiet dis chile," said the old negress, "en dat is Marse David.
— from The Builders by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

Large slabs are split out by wooden wedges, cut for basements and foundations, and laid in a beautiful manner; pillars are also hewn from single stones of different shapes, though of no extraordinary dimensions, and their shafts embellished with inscriptions.
— from The Middle Kingdom, Volume 1 (of 2) A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants by S. Wells (Samuel Wells) Williams

At Catechism class Mrs. Allen told the children of the proposed ride and picnic, which should take place on the next Thursday; all expressed their delight and you may be [Pg 42] sure, thought of nothing else during the intervening days.
— from Bolax, Imp or Angel—Which? by Josephine Culpeper