"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that."

"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is part…"

"Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,…"

"External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind th…"

"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

"I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been man enough to kn…"

"Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough." "Come, then,…"

"If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "Every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, s…"

"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its …"

"I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of …"