David Copperfield Quotes

“She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all edge.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Hay que tomar las cosas como vienen; eso es lo que tenemos que hacer en esta vida.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying the baker.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“¡Adelante! Por los malos caminos si no hay otros, por los buenos si se puede; pero ¡adelante! Saltemos por encima de todos los obstáculos para llegar a la meta”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“It's very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think that the only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world -- God bless my soul, if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come! -- is full liberty to worry her out of it again.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“wrote Charles”
― Clare West, David Copperfield

“But say you'll let me stop, and see you write."
"Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!" I replied.
"Are they bright, though?" returned Dora, laughing. "I'm so glad they're bright."
"Little Vanity!" said I.
But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I knew that very well, before she told me so.
"If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write!" said Dora. "Do you think them pretty?"
"Very pretty."
"Then let me always stop and see you write."
"I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora."
"Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, while you are full of silent fancies.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty in our way, little Em’ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no future.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains.
I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.
My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Do not be troubled," she said, giving me her hand, "by our misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God bless you always!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Do not be troubled,' she said, giving me her hand, 'by our misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God bless you always!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“I suppose history never lies, does it?" said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of hope.

"Oh dear, no, sir!" I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and young, and I thought so.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered; fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. But there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day. There has been a time since when I have wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to have held it up to save her. There has been a time since – I do not say it lasted long, but it has been – when I have asked myself the question, would it have been better for little Emily to have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when I have answered Yes, it would have been.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,—they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,—and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it.

It is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favourite characters in them—as I did—and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones—which I did too. I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels—I forget what, now—that were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees—the perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or alive.

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little village alehouse.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologise, I suppose that might have happened several times to anybody.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?"

"I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!" he exclaimed. "I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“I have observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield