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“It's very soon done, sir, isn't it?' inquired Mr. Folair of the collector, leaning over the table to address him.
What is soon done, sir?' returned Mr. Lillyvick.
The tying up, the fixing oneself with a wife,' replied Mr. Folair. 'It don't take long, does it?'
No, sir,' replied Mr. Lillyvick, colouring. 'It does not take long. And what then, sir?'
Oh! nothing,' said the actor. 'It don't take a man long to hang himself, either, eh? Ha, ha!”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“What do you mean, Phib?" asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little glass, where, like most of us, she saw - not herself, but the reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“I agree with the late William Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one reason for marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of my own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife, couldn't charge for her board, and would have to give me her services for nothing. That was the point of view I looked at it from. Economy - with a dash of love.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone