Quotes

It was, in short, on one of those mornings, when it is hot and cold, wet and dry, bright and lowering, sad and cheerful, withering and genial, in the compass of one short hour. ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens Chronicler's are privileged to enter where they list, to come and go through keyholes, to ride upon the wind, to overcome, in their soarings up and down, all obstacles of distance, time, and place. ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens The absence of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one. ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning. ~ Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens Laughter and bitterness are often the veils with which a sore heart wraps its weakness from the world. ~ Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard We may taste of every turn of chance—now rule as Kings, now serve as Slaves; now love, now hate; now prosper, and now perish. But still, through all, we are the same; for this is the marvel of Identity. ~ Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard While the world crashed to ruin about them and all the air was filled with the smoke of its burning, these low creatures gave rein to their bestiality and fought and drank and died. And after all, what did it matter? Everybody died anyway, the good and the bad, the efficients and the weaklings, those that loved to live and those that scorned to live. They passed. Everything passed. ~ The Scarlet Plague by Jack London With the coming of the Scarlet Death the world fell apart, absolutely, irretrievably. Ten thousand years of culture and civilization passed in the twinkling of an eye, 'lapsed like foam.' ~ The Scarlet Plague by Jack London "It was amazing, astounding, this loss of communication with the world. It was exactly as if the world had ceased, been blotted out." ~ The Scarlet Plague by Jack London "I sometimes think the most wonderful achievement of our tremendous civilization was food—its inconceivable abundance, its infinite variety, its marvellous delicacy. O my grandsons, life was life in those days, when we had such wonderful things to eat." ~ The Scarlet Plague by Jack London