It is not known why motorists, who sing the joys of the open road, spend so much petrol every weekend grinding their way to Southend and Brighton and Margate, in the stench of each other's exhausts, one hand on the horn and one foot on the brake, their eyes starting from their orbits in the nerve-racking search for cops, corners, blind turnings, and cross-road suicides. They ride in a baffled fury, hating each other. They arrive with shattered nerves and fight for parking places. They return, blinded by the headlights of fresh arrivals, whom they hate even worse than they hate each other. And all the time the Great North Road winds away like a long, flat, steel-grey ribbon - a surface like a race-track, without traps, without hedges, without side-roads, and without traffic. True, it leads to nowhere in particular; but after all, one pub is very much like another.
Ur Lord Peter Views the Body (The Cat in the Bag) av Dorothy L. Sayers
Att köra i värdig fart, medan det stora fordonet knappt svängde, nästan var tyst, föll sig enklare i Staterna. Befolkningen hade levt med automobilen längre än i något annat land. Folk hade tröttnat på bilen som ett kapplöpningsåk, eller ett penis- eller missilsubstitut. De stannade vid förortskorsningar och förhandlade artigt med blickar om vem som skulle köra först. De åtlydde till och med tjugofem kilometer i timmen-begränsningen runt skolor.
Ur Hetta av Ian McEwan