They were the only persons I knew in Washington.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

She is the only person I know who emphasizes her spelled words and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when I read her lips.
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller

Our friend's bodily frame had been so well lined with this sense, and with various earlier memories of his family, that their own special Swann had become to my people a complete and living creature; so that even now I have the feeling of leaving some one I know for another quite different person when, going back in memory, I pass from the Swann whom I knew later and more intimately to this early Swann—this early Swann in whom I can distinguish the charming mistakes of my childhood, and who, incidentally, is less like his successor than he is like the other people I knew at that time, as though one's life were a series of galleries in which all the portraits of any one period had a marked family likeness, the same (so to speak) tonality—this early Swann abounding in leisure, fragrant with the scent of the great chestnut-tree, of baskets of raspberries and of a sprig of tarragon.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

I In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P——, in Kentucky.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The netting of every country, almost, has a distinctive character of its own: that of Persia is known by its fine silken meshes and rich gold and silver embroidery; that of Italy, by the varied size and shape of its meshes and a resemblance in the style of its embroidery to the Punto tagliato; whilst the netting of France, known by the name of Cluny guipure, consists of a groundwork of fine meshes with stiff close designs embroidered upon it, outlined in coarse glazed thread.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

It's the only panacea I know.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald

The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter of Germany.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

She’s the only person I know who never gets any older.
— from My Antonia by Willa Cather

"Wyvis, Wyvis," said his mother, in a tone of pain, "I kept you away for your own sake.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

As I tried to concentrate on Masha and my impending doom, the Old People incident kept coming back to haunt me.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

"She is very different to other people, I know; but she is a good woman whatever."
— from Garthowen A Story of a Welsh Homestead by Allen Raine

It is the only place I know of; stay there all to-morrow and next day, and come up in the evening; or the next morning perhaps will be better.”
— from Percival Keene by Frederick Marryat

For this reason, the peasants, although exploited miserably, yet retained their personal liberty and their standing as subjects endowed with personal rights in all states where the feudal system had been fully developed when the system of payments in money replaced that of payments in kind.
— from The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically by Franz Oppenheimer

But this latter part of the agreement he occasionally breaks, for during the eclipse of the moon he is seen by many thousands of people, impudently kissing her silver face before the public gaze.
— from The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe Being Sketches of the Domestic and Religious Rites and Ceremonies of the Siamese by Ernest Young

Mr. Colburn and Fred Mitchell are the only people I know in your 'frat' except you, and I haven't seen either of them to-day, or I'd have asked one of them.”
— from Ramsey Milholland by Booth Tarkington

And the only prayer I know is 'My Father which art' in Gaelic, and there's nothing in it about pains in the spine of the back.
— from Bud: A Novel by Neil Munro

The interior of the old part is kept in the same condition as it was when Steuben occupied it, being, like most of the better dwellings of that time, neatly wainscoted with pine, wrought into moldings and panels.
— from The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Vol. 1 (of 2) or, Illustrations, by Pen And Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence by Benson John Lossing

"How about the thousands of families who don't earn enough to live decently even in times of prosperity?" inquired Krebs.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

You are the only person I know who ever had any influence with him; and they gave me to understand pretty clearly that if it went on Mr. Gerald would have to go."
— from A Woman's Burden: A Novel by Fergus Hume