"I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me more painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me," sighed Kate.

It is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished . . .

She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful.

The nephew revenges himself for this, by holding his breath and terrifying his kinswoman with the dread belief that he has made up his mind to burst. Regardless of whispers and shakes, he swells and becomes discoloured, and yet again swells and becomes discoloured, until the aunt can bear it no longer, but leads him out, with no visible neck, and with his eyes going before him like a prawn's.

I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything

From the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way Charles Darnay's way the way of the love of a woman

My imagination would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention