[I]t seemed as if the streets were absorbed by the sky, and the night were all in the air.

He lived in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.

a most excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so tight in some places and not quite so loose in others.

"You are a boy," said Mr. Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; "and what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it."

if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.

Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Christmas fire, and make the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete.

In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected.