"Moonlight knew no colors and traced the contours of the terrain only very softly. It covered the land a dirty gray, strangling life all night long."
- Patrick Süskind, Perfume. The story of a murderer
"For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence."
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Picturesque Notes
"And yet the place establishes an interest in people’s hearts; go where they will, they find no city of the same distinction; go where they will, they take a pride in their old home."
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Picturesque Notes
"But if you could just see the beauty
These things I could never describe
These pleasure's a wayward distraction
This is my one lucky prize"
- Isolation, Joy Division
“The courthouse clock struck the hour. The sounds blew across a town that was empty, emptier than it had ever been. Over empty streets and empty lots and empty lawns the sound faded.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
"So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea."
- Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
"But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of time."
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
"Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west: but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon."
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes