Date: 1797

"Of the walls that enclosed her, he scarcely ever lost sight; the view of them seemed to cherish his hopes, and, while he gazed upon their rugged surface, Ellena alone was pictured on his fancy; till his anxiety to learn her disposition towards him arose to agony, and he would abruptly leave the ...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"Over the gloom of Schedoni, no scenery had, at any moment, power; the shape and paint of external imagery gave neither impression or colour to his fancy."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"The plan, which he had mentioned, seemed to her long-harassed mind to exile her for ever from happiness, and all that was dear to her affections; it appeared like a second banishment to San Stefano, and every abbess, except that of La Pietà, came to her imagination in the portraiture of an inexo...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"As, at length, she drew near Naples, her emotions became more various and powerful; and when she distinguished the top of Vesuvius peering over every intervening summit, she wept as her imagination charactered all the well-known country it overlooked."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"The Marchesa reclined on a sofa before an open lattice; her eyes were fixed upon the prospect without, but her attention was wholly occupied by the visions that evil passions painted to her imagination."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"As, from beneath the light foliage of the accacias, or the more majestic shade of the plane-trees that waved their branches over the many-coloured cliffs of this terrace, Ellena looked down upon the magnificent scenery of the bay; it brought back to memory, in sad yet pleasing detail, the many h...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1826

"[T]hen sweet Memory / May come, and with her mirror cheer thy mind, / On whose bright surface lovelier scenes shall live / Than any shrined within Italian climes."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1860

"You have never seen Mr Wakem before, and are possibly wondering whether he was really as eminent a rascal and as crafty, bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general and of Mr Tulliver in particular, as he is represented to be in that eidolon or portrait of him which we have seen to exist in th...

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1999

"But my mother told me that just the opposite was true. That the pictures in your mind were always more beautiful than what was in the world."

— Offill, Jenny (b. 1968)