#dickens

I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so. He has taken me to another world and out of so many earthly miseries. ↗

— Jane Birkin

#because #chuckle #dickens #earthly #i

If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing. ↗

— Shelby Foote

#dickens #everything #faulkner #how #john

A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#love #our-mutual-friend #change

Between Scott on the earlier side and Dickens and Thackeray on the other, there was an immense production of novels, illustrated by not a few names which should rank high in the second class, while some would promote more than one of them to the first. ↗

— George Saintsbury

#class #dickens #earlier #few #first

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#uncle-tom-s-cabin #victorian #wilde #witty #death

Dickens' hypocrites are the prime beneficiaries of his inventive genius. The heroes and heroines have no imagination. We could scrap all the solemn parts of his novels without impairing his status as a writer. But we could not remove Mrs. Gamp or Pecksniff or Bounderby without maiming him irreparably. ↗

— John Carey

#imagination

Dickens' plots are his most discardable properties, and often have to be pushed aside to let the strange poetry of his imagination emerge. ↗

— John Carey

#imagination

As I know only too well, anticipation od happiness can sometimes be as gratifying as its consummation. Even during the first months of my separation, every footstep on the pavement would have me racing to the window, and every ring of the doorbell would set my heart beating as fast as a bird's. But as the months went by without even a word, I gradually had to relinquish my hopes of seeing him again. It was not easy to do so, and I am not sure whether I have managed it entirely; however I did stop waking with that thought in my head, imagining what he was doing every hour of the day, and whether his journey would by chance take him past my door. I tried to tell myself instead that I was fortunate in my neglect; that now I needed have no fear that he would arrive and his gimlet eye start to anatomize the cushions, or the curtains, or the state of the fireplace; that now, at last, my life was my own. But truth to tell, I would have given anything to see him walk with his jaunty step up to my front door and rap out a cheerful rhythm with his silver-topped cane. ↗

— Gaynor Arnold

#imagination

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." protagonist, facing the guillotine, sacrificing himself for the sake of his love ↗

— Charles Dickens

#cities #dickens #rest #revolution #tale

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

— Charles Dickens

#love #madness #love