Date: 1796

"I should love you, I should doat on you! my bosom would become the prey of desires, which honour and my profession forbid me to gratify."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"The woman reigns in my bosom, and I am become a prey to the wildest of passions."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"Theodore perceived well enough that something preyed upon my mind; but as I concealed the cause of my grief even from him, respect would not permit him to pry into my secrets."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"Amidst the horror and disgust to which his soul was a prey, pity for his victim still held a place in it."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"Her passion continued to prey upon her heart in secret, and she had almost determined to confess her sentiments to her mother, when accident once more threw their object in her way."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1854

"Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been--in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived if they had not been whistled away--by the fervor of this reproach."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1992

"Only behind a waterfall of brutal and pleasurable sensations, thought Patrick, accepting the leather-clad menu without bothering to glance up, could he hide from the bloodhounds of his conscience. . There, in the cool recess of the rock, behind that heavy white veil, he would hear them yelping a...

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"It was hard enough to rescue himself from the avalanche of his own feelings, without allowing the gloomy St Bernard of his attention to wander into other fields."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1992

"Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull, and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favourite cushion."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)