Seeing from the inside out

A wizard (not that it matters, you genre snob) discusses 'the good old days' with an equally elderly witch...

"Everything was a different colour in those days,"

"That's true." 

"It didn't rain so much in the summer time."

"There were more old people. The world was full of them," said the wizard.

"Yes I know. And now it's full of young people. Funny, really. I mean, you'd expect it to be the other way round." 

Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett

Awkward

The narrator has just spent the afternoon with a couple who are in mid-breakdown....

"The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, although I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs"

F. Scott Fizgerald, The Great Gatsby

The kind of book you'd let your servants read

The narrator speaks of her sister's book, famed for its salacious content...

People snuck off to Stratford or London or Toronto even, and obtained their copies on the sly, as was the custom then with condoms. Back at home they drew the curtains and read, with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee - even the ones who'd never thought of opening a novel before. There's nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage literacy.

Margaret Atwood. The Blind Assassin