1. Jay -- "The Great Gatsby"

"He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself" (Fitzgerald 48).

2. Holden  -- "The Catcher in the Rye" 

"And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up" (Salinger 134).

3. Dmitri -- "Crime and Punishment"

"God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from a drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you" (Dostoevsky 175).

4. Copeland -- "Slaughterhouse-Five"

"Rumfoord's left leg was in traction. He had broken it while skiing. He was seventy years old, but had the body and spirit of a man half that age" (Vonnegut 235).

5. Abel -- "Great Expectations"

"I will never stir from your side," said I, "when I am suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as true to you, as you have been to me!"(Dickins 457).

6. Newland -- "The Age of Innocence"

"I felt there was no one as kind as you; no one who gave me reasons that I understood for doing what at first seemed so hard and—unnecessary. The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands—and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before—and it's better than anything I've known..." (Wharton 172).

7. Caleb (Cal) -- "East of Eden"

"One moment he was dedicated and pure and devoted; the next he wallowed in filth; and the next he groveled in shame and emerged rededicated"(Steinbeck 446).

8. Giles -- "The Crucible"

"I will not give you no name. I mentioned my wife's name once and I'll burn in hell long enough for that. I stand mute" (Miller 97).

9. Dorian -- "The Picture of Dorian Gray" 

"Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's passionate purity" (Wilde 18).

10. Emerson -- "A Room with a View

"'I taught him,' he quavered, 'to trust in love. I said: 'When love comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand'" (Forster 192).

(Yes, this is a last name, but it's still a good name.)

11. Dallas (Dally) -- "The Outsiders" 

"But I remembered Dally pulling Johnny through the window of the burning church; Dally giving us his gun, although it could mean jail for him; Dally risking his life for us, trying to keep Johnny out of trouble" (Hinton 154).

12. Silas -- "Silas Marner" 

"Formerly, his heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket was empty, and the lock was broken. Left groping in darkness, with his prop utterly gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, though a dull and half-despairing one, that if any help came to him it must come from without; and there was a slight stirring of expectation at the sight of his fellow-men, a faint consciousness of dependence on their goodwill" (Eliot 134).

13. Asher -- "The Giver" 

"When he began to talk again, it was with greater precision. And now his lapses are very few. His corrections and apologies are very prompt. And his good humor is unfailing." The audience murmured in agreement. Asher's cheerful disposition was well-known throughout the community" (Lowry 55).

14. Mayella -- "To Kill A Mockingbird"

"Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson, had Miss Maudie deigned to permit a geranium on her premises. People said they were Mayella Ewell's" (Lee 170-1).

15. Clarissa -- "Mrs. Dalloway"

"Clarissa (crossing to the dressing-table) plunged into the very heart of the moment, transfixed it, there – the moment of this June morning on which was the pressure of all the other mornings, seeing the glass, the dressing-table, and all the bottles afresh, collecting the whole of her at one point (as she looked into the glass), seeing the delicate pink face of the woman who was that very night to give a party; of Clarissa Dalloway; of herself" (Wolfe 41-2).

16. Adela -- "A Passage to India"

"Although her hard school mistressy manner remained, she was no longer examining life, but being examined by it; she had become a real person" (Forster 272).

17. Antoinette -- "Wide Sargasso Sea"

"Underneath I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette Mason, née Cosway, Mount Calvary Convent, Spanish Town, Jamaica, 1839" (Rhys 29).

18. Janie Mae -- "Their Eyes Were Watching God" 

"The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there" (Hurston 87).

19. Ántonia -- "My Ántonia" 

"They were growing prettier every day, but as they passed us, I used to think with pride that Ántonia, like Snow-White in the fairy tale, was still 'fairest of them all'" (Cather 161).

20. Evangeline (Eva) -- "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

"To him she seemed something almost divine; and whenever her golden head and deep blue eyes peered out upon him from behind some dusky cotton-bale, or looked down upon him over some ridge of packages, he half believed that he saw one of the angels stepped out of his New Testament" (Stowe 214).

21. Lenina -- "Brave New World" 

"I wish we could have brought the plane. I hate walking. And you feel so small when you're on the ground at the bottom of a hill" (Huxley 115).

22. Clarisse -- "Fahrenheit 451" 

"I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this" (Bradbury 22).

23. Eliza -- "The Coquette" 

"I was introduced to Miss Eliza Wharton—a young lady whose elegant person, accomplished mind, and polished manners have been much celebrated. Her fame has often reached me; but, as the Queen of Sheba said to Solomon, the half was not told me. You will think that I talk in the style of a lover. I confess it; nor am I ashamed to rank myself among the professed admirers of this lovely fair one" (Foster 810).

24. Augusta -- "The Importance of Being Earnest"

"When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way" (Wilde 305).

25. Elinor -- "Sense and Sensibility" 

"She had an excellent heart; - her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn, and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught" (Austen 31).

26. Georgiana -- "The Birthmark"

"Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts" (Hawthorne 38).