It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened

A thing that is very unexpected and moderately strange, we meet with wide-opened eyes, with a start and perhaps exclamations; but a thing more than strange, utterly unaccounted for, quite unreasonable, and the last thing one could have supposed possible as coming from the person who demanded it, is met in far quieter fashion.

It was shocking, deeply shocking.

This was unrecorded history, unhappening even as it happened.

This was fantastic, insane—contrary to the axioms of her existence.

There was too much going on here — too much that strayed from odd all the way over into seriously weird.

There was something strange and extraordinary about her – something that was frightening and at the same time most exciting.

Actually, the situation was intolerable. But then it was surprising how much intolerableness a man could tolerate.

Our circumstance is abject, indefensible, and terrifying. It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.

There occurred an incident that struck me at the time as some kind of supernatural event, but seems to me in retrospect to have been perhaps some kind of fit.

It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.

The carnage was unbelievable.

It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author's position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by his characters. They resist him, they are not easy to live with.

All circumstances taken together, the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened on the world. The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means the most absurd and ridiculous; in the most ridiculous modes; and, apparently, by the most contemptible instruments. Everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. In viewing this monstrous tragicomic scene, the most opposite passions necessarily succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in the mind; alternate contempt and indignation; alternate laughter and tears; alternate scorn and horror.