Date: 1860

"The thoughts and temptations of the last month should all be flung away into an unvisited chamber of memory: there was nothing to allure her now; duty would be easy, and all the old calm purposes would reign peacefully once more."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1871-2, 1874

"How was it that in the weeks since her marriage, Dorothea had not distinctly observed but felt with a stifling depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband's mind were replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither?"

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1871-2, 1874

"Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great work, also of attrac...

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 2011

"Clean out my heart, you know? It's like a crowded old garage. It needs emptying and sorting."

— Nadzam, Bonnie

Date: 2015

"The mind of a child! Children have no hearts (cf. Peter Pan, another story Meg could reproduce fairly accurately), and their minds are rickety towers of surreal detritus."

— Zink, Nell (b. 1964)

Date: 2024

"I wish I could explain to him that I don't want to think about her any more, but thinking about her is not a choice; that--even though Jen is no longer in my physical life--the room inside my mind that has been occupied by her for the last four years still exists. I want to convert it to a home ...

— Dolly Alderton (b. 1988)

Date: 2024

"Sometimes I wake up and the first thing I think of if Jen, and I imagine the tiny version of her in a doll's house bedroom in my brain and I'm comforted by Imaginary Jen who wants to keep my company for a little bit longer."

— Dolly Alderton (b. 1988)