I will undertake that if you will satisfy even me—a stranger, without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind—Dr. Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege you seek.”
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

You are very sensible that Skyrris Bolgolam ( galbet or high-admiral) hath been your mortal enemy almost ever since your arrival: his original reasons I know not; but his hatred is increased since your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory, as admiral, is much obscured.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

Artists draw your magazine covers, write your advertisements, hash out rag-time for your theatres.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald

You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute that statement? SOCRATES:
— from Gorgias by Plato

It was under the particular supervision of Bishop Levi S. Ives; and it was here that, 30 years ago, he openly renounced loyalty to his church and went over to the Roman Catholic faith.
— from The Heart of the Alleghanies; or, Western North Carolina by Wilbur Gleason Zeigler

The good Sense which he possesses comes also to his Aid, and saves him from being despicable, by forcing your Esteem for his real Abilities.--Again, the Privilege you allow him of rebuking and checking others, when he assumes it with proper Firmness and Superiority, helps to settle 28 anew, and compose his Character after an Embarrassment; And reduces in some measure the Spirit of the Company to a proper Level, before he sets out again upon a fresh Adventure;--without this, they would be kept continually strain'd, and wound up to the highest Pitch, without sufficient Relief and Diversity.
— from An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) by Corbyn Morris

But I can’t offer you any hope of realizing anything from the balance.
— from Tom Temple's Career by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

At the bottom of the steps which led up to the surface a wall had been recently broken down, showing that the tunnel had been closed up for years and had only recently been opened.
— from The Tickencote Treasure by William Le Queux

On Sunday there was a christening at the church, in which we were all interested, and through which one of the names born by the humble writer of these pages may be remembered a few years after his own race is run.
— from England and Canada A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical Notes by Sandford Fleming

This year at his own request the decorations had been left wholly to him; now he seemed satisfied.
— from The Bride of the Mistletoe by James Lane Allen

“She is frivolous and a coquette, she loves to have attentions paid her, and to have the comedy of love-making performed for her, as she says; but you are her only real attachment.”
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

The frenzied storm of murder maintained a few yards above him only reached him confusedly and indistinctly, and like a noise from a depth.
— from Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean by Victor Hugo