“No good sentences ever include the word ‘should.’ I should have paid the tavern bill; now they’re coming to break my legs. I should never have run off with my best friend’s wife; now she devils me constantly. I should—”

“She will assume it was me, assume that I have come to make good on my promises. One of us should.”

“I have no objection whatever to your representing me as a little eccentric, since you and your learned friends would have it so; only don't set me on in my fury to burning hearthrugs, sawing the backs off chairs, and tearing my wife's silk gowns... Had I been numbered amongst the calm, concentric men of the world, I should not have been as I now am, and I should in all probability never have had such children as mine have been.”

“At the time, I was unable to understand anything.! I should have based my judgement upon deeds and not words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I should never have run away from her.! I should have guessed at the affection behind her poor little tricks. Flowers are so inconsistent.! But I was too young to know how to love her.”

“Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”

“I wonder if they talk about my ending as a tragedy. If the words would have and should have clung their talons behind my name, or if their sentences always have the word was instead of is.”