“Everything’s connected, one distant tremor can eventually shake the whole world…” Germinal, by Zola

“The years changed things, destroyed things, heaped things up, worries and bothers, here they were again.” – The Years, by Virginia Woolf

“But hearing in the full sense is blocked, intelligible foreign sounds are limited to the voices of waiters, shopkeepers, professional guides, and hotel clerks… Even in Britain, accent intonation and vocabulary often are unfamiliar; tourists do not recognize many of the noises they hear…” Foreign Affairs, by Alison Lurie

“Everybody at all addicted to letter-writing, without having much to say, which will include a large proportion of the female world at large, must feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck, having such a capital piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath, at a time when she could make no advantage of it…” Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen\

“I did not think Mr. Millward was a fool, and he believes it all; but however little you may value the opinions of other people, it it not pleasant to be looked upon as a liar and a hypocrite, to be thought to practice what you abhor, and to encourage the vices you would discountenance, to find your good intentions frustrated, and your hands crippled by your supposed unworthiness, and to bring disgrace on the principles you abhor.” – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte

“What does it mean to have read a book? You just have to stand around a square and look around: lots of people talking on their mobile phones, What do they have to say to each other?,,, I tried to set a beautiful ringtone instead of the default one but waking up is still awful. The time machine exists.” – The Hummingbird, by Sandro Veronisi