Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Pellucidar, Prologue
I became interested in your story, at the Earth's Core, not so much because of the probability of the tale as of a great and abiding wonder that people should be paid money for writing such impossible trash. You will pardon my candor, but it is necessary that you understand my mental attitude toward this particular story - that you may credit that which follows.
Williams Makepeace Thackery
- "The Seven Years' War" - The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.
It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to explain the causes of the famous Seven Years' War in which Europe was engaged; and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a chapter than at the beginning, and so shall not trouble my reader with any personal disquisitions on the matter.
Mickey Spillane
- I, The Jury - Chapter 8
This was no regular red-light district. Just a good spot for what went on. An old, quiet neighborhood patrolled several times a day by a friendly cop, a few straggling businesses in the basement apartments. No kids - the street was too dull for them. No drunks lounging in doorways either. I pulled on my cigarette for the last time, then crushed it under my heel and started across the street.