Charles Dickens

"The broken heart. You think you will die, but you keep living, day after day after terrible day."

"There are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in mine."

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

"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will"

"On the appointed day -- I think it was the next day, but no matter -- Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old."

"Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart."

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."

"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor."

"“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”"

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."

"Are not the sane and the insane equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming?"

"Then it is your opinion…that a man should never-“-Invest in portable property in a friend?”… “Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend- and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him."

"Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait."

"It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long, nights - such nights as only watchers by the bed of sickness know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets of the heart, the pent-up, hidden secrets of many years, poured forth by the unconscious helpless being before you; and to think how little the reserve, and cunning of a whole life will avail, when fever and delirium tear off the mask at last. Strange tales have been told in the wanderings of dying men; tales so full of guilt and crime, that those who stood by the sick person's couch have fled in horror and affright, lest they should be scared to madness by what they heard and saw; and many a wretch has died alone, raving of deeds, the very name of which, has driven the boldest man away.("The Drunkard's Death")"

"Our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!"

"The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow."

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!"

"Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue: the death of night, rather than the birth of day: glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and fast; and pattered, noisily, among the leafless bushes."

"What am I doing? Tearing myself. My usual occupation at most times."