"There is no more evanescent quality in an accomplished fact than its wonderfulness. Solicited incessantly by the considerations affecting its fears and desires, the human mind turns naturally away from the marvellous side of events."

- Conrad, Nostromo, 1904.

"I was as welcome as the flowers in May, once the crew knew that I was going across with them. A man who thinks he may have to be a hero is consoled by the thought that his friends may read about it."

- A.J. Liebling, Normandy Revisited, 1955.

- Giovanni Tiepolo, The Procession of the Trojan Horse Into Troy, 1760.