"The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it."

"The unities, sir," he said, "are a completeness — a kind of universal dovetailedness with regard to place and time — a sort of a general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an expression. I take those to be the dramatic unities, so far as I have been enabled to bestow attention upon them, and I have read much upon the subject, and thought much."

"Making himself very amiable to the infant phenomenon, was an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness, who played the calm and virtuous old men."

"She knows wot's wot, she does."

"Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair."

"By the bye, who ever knew a man who never read or wrote either, who hadn't got some small back parlour which he WOULD call a study!"

"Yes, I have a pair of eyes," replied Sam, "and that's just it. If they wos a pair o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps I might be able to see through a flight o' stairs and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision 's limited."

""Do you spell it with a 'V' or a 'W'?" inquired the judge. "That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord," replied Sam."

"It's my opinion, sir, that this meeting is drunk, sir."

"Never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi."

"Poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked poetry 'cept a beadle on Boxin'-Day, or Warren's blackin', or Rowland's oil, or some of them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy."

"Keep yourself TO yourself."

"When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people."

"Eccentricities of genius, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "You may retire."

"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 fireside and his quiet home!"

"Ven you’re a married man, Samivel, you’ll understand a good many things as you don’t understand now; but vether it’s worth 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."

"Oh, my young friend, who else could have resisted the pleading of sixteen of our fairest sisters, and withstood their exhortations to subscribe to our noble society for providing the infant negroes in the West Indies with flannel waistcoats and moral pocket-handkerchiefs?"

"Dumb as a drum vith a hole in it, Sir."

"It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always says in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man's head off."

"It’s a wery remarkable circumstance, Sir", said Sam, "that poverty and oysters seems to go together."

"Think, Sir!" replied Mr. Weller; "why, I think he's the wictim o' connubiality, as Blue Beard's domestic chaplain said, vith a tear of pity, ven he buried him."

"I took a good deal o’ pains with his eddication, sir; let him run in the streets when he was wery young, and shift for his-self. It’s the only way to make a boy sharp, sir."

"Take example by your father, my boy, and be very careful o’ widders all your life, specially if they’ve kept a public house, Sammy."

"Mr. Weller's knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar."

"Battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, vhen you ain't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores, in which case it gets too excitin' to be pleasant."

"Tongue —, well that's a wery good thing when it ain't a woman's."

"And a wery good name it is; only one I know that ain't got a nickname to it."

"Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog!"

""It's always best on these occasions to do what the mob do." "But suppose there are two mobs?" suggested Mr. Snodgrass. "Shout with the largest," replied Mr. Pickwick."

"Whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at public meeting ... disputes and high words arose between them... Everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one man and stood aghast at the enormity."

"I wants to make your flesh creep."

"It wasn't the wine," murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. "It was the salmon."

"Did it ever strike you, on such a morning as this, that drowning would be happiness and peace?"

"There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick's hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide."

"There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat."

"Kent, sir — everybody knows Kent — apples, cherries, hops, and women."

"Ah! you should keep dogs — fine animals — sagacious creatures — dog of my own once — pointer — surprising instinct — out shooting one day — entering inclosure — whistled — dog stopped — whistled again — Ponto — no go; stock still — called him — Ponto, Ponto — wouldn't move — dog transfixed — staring at a board — looked up, saw an inscription — "Gamekeeper has orders to shoot all dogs found in this inclosure" — wouldn't pass it — wonderful dog — valuable dog that — very."

"I am ruminating," said Mr. Pickwick, "on the strange mutability of human affairs." "Ah! I see — in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. Philosopher, Sir?" "An observer of human nature, Sir," said Mr. Pickwick. "Ah, so am I. Most people are when they've little to do and less to get."

"Heads, heads — take care of your heads!... Five children — mother — tall lady, eating sandwiches — forgot the arch — crash — knock — children look round — mother's head off — sandwich in her hand—no mouth to put it in — head of a family off—shocking, shocking!"

"Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire."

"He had used the word in its Pickwickian sense."

"You're a amiably-disposed young man, Sir, I don't think."

"WE know, Mr. Weller—we, who are men of the world—that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or later."

"'Come,' said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced; 'Come, Oliver! Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish action, Oliver.'"

"Oliver Twist has asked for more!"

"'Please, sir, I want some more.'"

"The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration, — a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence, — and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favor of the latter. Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time."

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience."