Charles Dickens Quotes
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There is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed.
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And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment.
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I expect a judgment. Shortly.
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My hair stands on end at the cost and charges of these boys. Why was I ever a father! Why was my father ever a father!
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Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.
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There might be some credit in being jolly.
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Champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life.
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"Oh!" said my aunt, "I was not aware at first to whom I had the pleasure of objecting."
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It is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.
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The first diabolical character who intruded himself on my peaceful youth (as I called to mind that day at Dullborough), was a certain Captain Murderer. This wretch must have been an off-shoot of the Blue Beard family, but I had no suspicion of the consanguinity in those times. His warning name would seem to have awakened no general prejudice against him, for he was admitted into the best society and possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer's mission was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with tender brides.
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He lived in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.
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Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.
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"My good fellow," retorted Mr. Boffin, "you have my word; and how you can have that, without my honour too, I don't know. I've sorted a lot of dust in my time, but I never knew the two things go into separate heaps."
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In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it.
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When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life.
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... what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance.
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'Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.
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But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.
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I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought.
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For though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper.
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
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Now, what I want is, Facts. . . . Facts alone are wanted in life.
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I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should stand by itself, of itself, and for itself.
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... I have read in your face, as plain as if it was a book, that but for some trouble and sorrow we should never know half the good there is about us.