Van

“From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Staring at the wall opposite him he presented the queen with a view of his ear and awaited her orders.”
― Megan Whalen Turner

“... I wanted Ambiades to understand that I considered myself a hierarchy of one.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief

“As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief