“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald《The Great Gatsby》

“Time and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away.”

— Jack London《The Call of the Wild》

“She had been deeply impressed with the idea of French spies at some time in her life; and the notion could never be fairly eradicated, but sprang up again from time to time.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell《Cranford》

“DEAR DICK, At what time of life may a man think himself exempted from the necessity of sacrificing his repose to the punctilios of a contemptible world?”

— Tobias Smollett《The Expedition of Humphry Clinker》

“The sons and daughters of the Love-Star instantly ceased their own soft musical conversation, and Zaidie sang the old plantation song through for the first time that a human voice had sung it to ears other than human.”

— George Griffith《A Honeymoon in Space》

“I have thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to me in preserving me in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life.”

— Mary Rowlandson《Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson》

“But ere that time he had studied to good effect, and not books alone, but the world around him too, and the world within.”

— Dante Alighieri《The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri》

“Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett《The Secret Garden》

“This gave me new life and spirits; and my heart burned within me, while I thought the time long till I obtained my freedom.”

— Olaudah Equiano《The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano》

“It is also shown by the honour paid to him by men up to the present time, and by the recollection which is still held of him as more than human.”

— Arrian《Anabasis of Alexander》

“Those eyes and that smile contained all the cruel cynicism that seethes below the surface of a sophisticated and degenerate race, and for the first time in her life Valeria experienced fear of a man.”

— Robert E. Howard《Red Nails》

“I, unhappy that I am, these eight years have I loved thee more than my life, and thou, as I have felt, art all afire and all consumed with love of a strange woman, wicked and perverse man that thou art!”

— Giovanni Boccaccio《The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio》