Jessica

“I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot", or "That Claudius", or "Claudius the Stammerer", or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius", am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled.”
― Robert Graves, I, Claudius

“I met another like him, nearly two years later, in San Sebastian, who informed me that he was so disgusted with the British for the way they had let down his Czar that he had ceased altogether to drink whiskey.”
― Peter Kemp, Mine Were of Trouble

“Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“I dare not hope. I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South