Date: 1691

"This Voyage round the World was made in the Ship of Fancy, which every one knows, like the Cossaks Boats, sails as well by Land as Water.--And now I hope you are satisfied."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"This Cobler having been drinking till his Brains were shipwrackt in a deluge of Canary, yet unable with all that Liquor to quench his Nose, which appeared so flaming, that when he was smoaking, it could not be discerned by the most critical Eye, at which end his Pipe burned with the more red-hot...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1719

"It is as impossible as needless, to set down the innumerable Crowd of Thoughts that whirl'd through that great Thorowfair of the Brain, the Memory, in this Night's Time."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1992

" He was dangerously obsessed, dangerously obsessed. And his thoughts, like a bobsleigh walled with ice, would not change their course until he had crashed or achieved his end."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"It's the medium-sized thoughts that jump ship in an emergency."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"My mind floated like the Bullet Train above its tracks, meeting no obstruction; everything clear."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2009

"He steered his thoughts away from the subject of sex, his brain as nimble as an aircraft carrier."

— Nicholls, David (b. 1966)