The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

I hope you won't take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have of appealing to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you with the greatest authors in your hands, and don't I know how ready your attention is to wander when it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person?

In all my experience along the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet.

when Christians take leave of their senses, who is to expect that pencils will keep their points?