A very little key will open a very heavy door.

Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions.

Friendless I can never be, for all mankind are my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no one member of my great family.

Champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life.

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 o' them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy.

And from that hour his poor maimed spirit, only remembering the place where it had broken its wings, cancelled the dream through which it had since groped, and knew of nothing beyond the Marshalsea.

It was a good thing to have a couple of thousand people all rigid and frozen together, in the palm of one's hand.