“Being that rare sort of old girl who receives good to her arms without a hint that it might be better, and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her.”

“With throbbing veins and burning skin, eyes wild and heavy, thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light were a reproach, and shrunk involuntarily from the day as if he were some foul and hideous thing.”

“The flowers that sleep by night opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.”

“Nobody near me here but rats; they are fine, stealthy, secret fellows.”

“If great criminals told the truth (which, being great criminals, they do not) they would very rarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles are towards it. They buffet with opposing waves to gain the bloody shore, not to recede from it.”

“Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up...”

“The coffee was boiling over a charcoal fire, and large slices of bread and butter were piled one upon the other like deals in a lumber yard.”

“Your voice and music are the same to me.”

“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

“I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.”

“Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.”

“I have heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of dead people who are not easy in their graves keep the day they died upon.”

“I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beaten out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so, God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap — God bless you!”

“What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, gentle, beautiful, pleasant, serene, and joyful? O yes!”

“"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."”

“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then.”

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

“Such is hope, heaven's own gift to struggling mortals, pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things both good and bad.”

“Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold.”

“I think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of mothers shall be visited on their children, as well as the sins of their fathers.”

“From the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way — Charles Darnay's way: the way of the love of a woman.”

“Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.”

“Grief never mends broken bones.”

“Champagne is one of the elegant extras in life.”

“Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.”

“We loved with a love that was more than love.”

“A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”

“A multitude of people and yet solitude.”

“We never tire of the friendships we form with books.”

“I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support of any kind from anyone that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!”

“At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.”

“Death is nature's remedy for all things.”

“Some women's faces are, in their brightness, a prophecy; and some, in their sadness, a history.”

“She writhes under her life. A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived.”

“In this round world of many circles within circles, do we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low, to find at last that they lie close together, that the two extremes touch, and that our journey's end is but our starting-place?”

“One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of the earth.”

“Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.”

“I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry — I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart — God knows what its name was — that tears started to my eyes.”

“My heart is set as firmly as ever the heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands and cast them to the wind.”

“I want to escape from myself. For when I do start up and stare myself seedily in the face, as happens to be my case at present, my blankness is inconceivable—indescribable; my misery amazing.”

“I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.”

“Oh Agnes, oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!”

“I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.”

“So does a whole world, with all of its greatness and littleness, lie in a twinkling star.”

“Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women born with heavenly compassion in your hearts, and dying thus around us every day.”

“Money can't buy a happy life or a peaceful death.”

“Be mindful. Be grateful. Be positive. Be true. Be kind.”

“Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?”

“I cannot live without books.”

“And O, there are days in this life worth life and worth death.”