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'Disciple,' said Tripitaka, 'those who have left the family should not lie. It was less than an hour since you left me, and you claim to have had tea at the home of the Dragon King?' 'To tell you the truth,' said Pilgrim, laughing, 'I know how to cloud somersault, and a single somersault will carry me one hundred and eight thousand miles. That's why I can go and return in no time at all.' Tripitaka said, 'Because I spoke to you a little sharply, you were offended and left me in a rage. With your ability, you could go and ask for some tea, but a person like me has no other prospect but to sit here and endure hunger. Do you feel comfortable about that?'

Wu Cheng'en, The Journey to the West (trans. Anthony C. Yu)

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Neither of them appeared to notice me. Léon de Valmy was speaking. That he was angry was obvious, and it looked as if he had every right to be, but the cold lash of his voice as he flayed the child for his small-boy carelessness was frightening; he was using - not a wheel, but an atomic blast, to break a butterfly. 

Mary Stewart, Nine Coaches Waiting

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Any thing like a general argument Mr. Hardcastle could not comprehend. He knew every blade of grass within the reach of his tether, but could not reach an inch beyond.

Maria Edgeworth, Ennui

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The Hour-Glass empties slowly to those who watch every Sand that falls thro’ it. This was the Case with me; the fleetest of the Creation, had he been my Messenger, would have appeared slow to my Impatience. From the Instant the Chairman left me, I expected his Return, and would not believe my Watch, it marked the Progress of Stone so tediously, in Comparison of my swift Imagination.

Sarah Fielding, The History of Ophelia

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because you believe I exist I exist I exist in your verdant garden                 you have planted me                  I am glad to grow

May Swenson, You Are

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The words of Theodore, which told her he was fearful she was deceived, confirmed this most painful apprehension of La Motte, with another yet more distressing, that Madame La Motte was also united against her. This thought, for a moment, subdued terror and left her only grief; she wept bitterly. ‘Is this human nature?’ cried she. ‘Am I doomed to find every body deceitful?’

Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest

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After some time she was recovered, by Leonora’s assistance, from her reverie, and presently began to admire my vivacity, and to find out that I was Clarissa’s Miss Howe - no, I was Lady G. - no, I was Heloise’s Clara: but I, choosing to be myself,  and insisting on being an ORIGINAL, sunk visibly and rapidly in Olivia’s opinion, till I was in imminent danger of being NOBODY.

Maria Edgeworth, Leonora

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It took a minute before she found her voice again. She told me - in a fierce whisper - not to take another step. But as soon as she’d said it she saw her own mistake: it was an admission, this was exactly the time of my life where I COULD finally take a step away from her, many steps, I was almost twelve, I was already as tall as her - I could dance right out of her life - and so a shift in her authority was inevitable, was happening precisely as we stood there. I said nothing, stepped around her, went into my room and slammed the door. 

Zadie Smith, Swing Time

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She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, ‘Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die - die, sweetly die - into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.’

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

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But, if they WILL compel me: if they WILL give me no time: if nobody WILL be moved: if it be resolved that the ceremony shall be read over my constrained hand - why then - alas! what then! - I can but - but what? Oh my dear! This Solmes shall never have my vows I am resolved! And I will say nothing but No, as long as I shall be able to speak. And who will presume to look upon such acts of violence as a marriage? - It is impossible, surely, that a father and mother can see such a dreadful compulsion offered to their child - But if mine should withdraw and leave the task to my brother and sister, they will have no mercy!

Samuel Richardson, Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady

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When Sha Monk heard the name of Sun Wukong, he felt as if his head had been anointed with mellow wine, as if his heart had been moistened with sweet dew. Joy flooded his countenance; his whole face lit up with spring. He did not behave like someone who heard the announcement of a person’s arrival, but rather like someone who had just discovered a block of gold or jade.

Wu Cheng'en, The Journey to the West (trans. Anthony C. Yu)

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At the commencement of this story, her father is described in the last moments of his life, with all his cares fixed upon her, his only child - how vain these cares! how vain every precaution that was taken for her welfare! She knows, she reflects upon this; and yet, torn by that instinctive power which a parent feels, Lady Elmwood on her dying day has no worldly thought, but that of the future happiness of HER only child. - To every other prospect before her, ‘Thy will be done’ is her continual exclamation; but where the misery of her daughter represents itself, the dying penitent would there, combat the will of heaven.

Elizabeth Inchbald, A Simple Story

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Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

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You are all too rich to be happy, child. For must not each of you by the constitutions of your family marry to be STILL richer? People who know in what their MAIN excellence consists are not to be blamed (are they?) for cultivating and improving what they think most valuable? Is true happiness any part of your family-view? - So far from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner!

Samuel Richardson, Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady

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Never to despise in myself what I have been taught to despise. Not to despise the other.  Not to despise the IT. To make this relation with the it : to know that I am it.

Muriel Rukeyser, Despisals

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Well! what is there remarkable in all this? Why have I recorded it? Because, reader, it was important enough to give me a cheerful evening, a night of pleasing dreams, and a morning of felicitous hopes - you would say; and I will not venture to deny it: suspicion to that effect arose too frequently in my own mind; but our wishes are like tinder: the flint and steel of circumstances are continually striking out sparks, which vanish immediately, unless they chance to fall upon the tinders of our wishes; then, they instantly ignite, and the flame of hope is kindled in a moment.

Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

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J. trailed off, silence overtaking the scritch of pen on paper, and heaved a chest-cracking breath. It felt as if the ink had crawled up from hir guts and ripped free onto the page, splattered there in a horrorshow of anger and need and pain. This was what it was like, in words - insufficient, flat, a belly-shaking cry distilled into a page of symbols. This was what it was like to yank at the edges of the gash and look at the insides.

Lee Mandelo, The Pigeon Summer