QUOTES...

Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
Barnaby Rudge (1841) 

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!
Dombey and Son (1848)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

It is a far, far, better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far, better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing so irresistibly contagious as laughter.
A Christmas Carol (1843)

You do not know...what men have done to win it (gold), and how they have found, too late, that it glitters brightest at a distance, and turns quite dim and dull when handled.
Barnaby Rudge (1841)

Ven you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but vether it's worthwhile, goin' through so much, to learn so little, as the charity-boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste.
The Pickwick Papers (1836)

I love these little people (children); and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.
The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues--faith and hope.
Nicholas Nickleby (1839)

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.
A Christmas Carol (1843)

The children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up.
Bleak House (1852)

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
David Copperfield (1850)

There's nothing more regular in its coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in its coming round than dinner.
The Chimes (1844)



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*The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. MA 97.

All of Dickens' novels were submitted to the printer in pen-and-ink (and blobs!). The typesetter would have to carefully decipher the sometimes illegible handwriting, written in the passion of the creative moment. The first typewriters came on the market in 1874, four years after Dickens' death. This is a portion of the original manuscript for the opening stave of A Christmas Carol.