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"Mr. Jaggers's room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal place; the skylight, eccentrically patched like a broken head, and the distorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted themselves to down at me through it"

"Mr. Jaggers's own high-backed chair was of deadly black horse-hair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a coffin"

"So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me"

"...he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it"

"...but I shall by this means be able to check your bills and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable. Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's no fault of mine"

"Whereas I now found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for Tom-cats"

"...saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated"

"As to our lodging, it's not by any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father hasn't anything to give me, and I shouldn't be willing to take it, if he had"

"...it's all over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you'll forgive me for having knocked you about so"

"That girl's hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to weak revenge on all the male sex"

"...a natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something wonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the same time whispered to me he would never be successful or rich"

"I would take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever he saw me at a loss or going wrong"

"Let me introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth - for fear of accidents"

"...because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself"

"The only independent one among them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his presence, and my father has never seen her since"

"It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced confidence, acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared in the profits"

"...and in the afternoon we walked in the Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did"

"I saw that Mr. and Mrs. Pocket's children were not growing up or being brought up, but were tumbling up"

"...she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless"

"I wondered who really was in possession of the house and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the servants"

"Drummle didn't say much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky kind of fellow)"

"Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the pleasure was soon over"

"Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful woman, and said in the most natural manner when she came to look after the situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess"

"I was not designed for any profession, and that I should be well enough educated for my destiny if I could "hold my own" with the average of young men in prosperous circumstances"

"...he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling mine with him"

"This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind"

"Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap...murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, didn't plan it badly"

"They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, Get hold of portable property"

"Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water"

"I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books"

"Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red-hot, if inveigled into touching it"

"I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades"

"No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me"

"...we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again"

"He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually large jack-trowel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police-court or dismissed a client from his room"

"In a corner, was a little table of papers with a shaded lamp; so that he seemed to bring the office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an evening and fall to work"

"I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of our disposition out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast of my great prospects, before I quite knew I had opened my lips"

"The last wrist was much disfigured - deeply scarred and scarred across and across. When she held her hands out, as she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession"

"...don't have too much to do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is a one of the true sort"

"...and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you...I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a worthy worthy man"

"Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money"

"So throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise"

"But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird's-nest with eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with that piece of property, and persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way"

"I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me"

"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been many fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private and beknown, and understood among friends. It aint' that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th' meshes"

"I was not by any means convinced on the last point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting up at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe's; I was not expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from Miss Havisham's, and she was exacting and mightn't like it. All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself"

"The great numbers on their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals"

"The very first words I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the words my own thought, 'Two One-Pound notes'"

"Would I find out that boy that had fed him and kept his secret, and give him them two one-pound notes? Yes I would. And I did"

"A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank"

"...the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not only so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and so differently circumstanced, that it was not all likely he could have known me without accidental help"

"I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilised man, who would have told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes"

'"She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a going and the cold hearts a blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin - in short , do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess"

"...I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be"

"I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped back into the coarse and common boy again"

"Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had disturbed my boyhood - from all those ill-regulated aspirations that had first made me ashamed of home and Joe"

"...what was fit company for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now." "In my conscience, I doubt very much whet her I had any lingering intention left of going to see Joe; but if I had, this observation put it to flight"

"'You must know, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, 'that I have no heart - if that has anything to do with my memory'"

"'I'll tell you,' said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, 'what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did'"

"Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody else) afraid of him"

"'I love her, I love her, I love her!' hundreds of times. Then, a burst of gratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the blacksmith's boy"

"Still my position was a distinguished one, and I was not at all dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the way of that unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy"

"I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in every respectful mind"

"As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel of oyster to Joe (as reparation for not having gone myself), and then went to Barnard's Inn"

"Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate). This may lead to miserable things"

"In her furred traveling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes...and I thought I saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change"

"We have no choice, you and I, but to obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you and I"

"They watch you, misrepresent you, write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment and occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realise to yourself the hatred those people feel for you"

"Whatever her tone with me happened to be, I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on against trust and against hope"

"It's part of Miss Havisham's plan for me Pip"

"And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable"

"Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for he was a most delightful lecturer on domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and servants were considered the very best text-books"

"I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face, and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the fire, I thought, after all, there was no fire like the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home"

"My lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and regrets"

"We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintances were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did

"It was fine summer weather again, and as I walked along, the time when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me, vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them, that softened even the edge of Tickler"

"I would in preference have carried her to the church, along with three of four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbors would look down on such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect"

"In this progress I was much annoyed by the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way, as a delicate attention, in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing my cloak"

"I noticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far, as to make a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress: in which the dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was. He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little room, and I was pleased too; for, I felt that I had done rather a great thing in making the request"

"I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to tell me why..." "Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?"

"But we had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly help saying something definite on that occasion"

"'Well, Pip,' said he, 'I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations, Mr. Pip'"

"'When that person discloses,' straightening himself, 'you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine'"

"From this last speech I derived the notion that Miss Havisham, for some reasons or no reason, had not taken him into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented this, and felt a jealousy about it"

"'This friend, is trying to get on in commercial life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a beginning. Now, I want somehow to help him to a beginning'"

"'And that, 'is your deliberate opinion?" "'That,' he returned, 'is my deliberate opinion in this office'"

"He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to dinner...he [Herbert] thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty"

"I alluded to the advantages I had derived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might have done better without me and my expectations"

"I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to understand that my help must always be rendered without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and that there was no one else in the world with whom I could advise"

"'On the contrary,' said he, 'I thank you, for though we are strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there are Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away"

"...he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance"

"Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading, Wemmick's arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins"

"Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy"

"I did really cry in good earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to somebody"

"Let my body be where it would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering about that house"

"The mother looked young and the daughter looked old; the mother's complexion was pink, and the daughter's was yellow"

"She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very familiarity between herself and me to the account of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her...I could not have seemed to myself, further from my hopes when I was nearest to her"

"I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me onto death"

"...will you never take warning" "of what" "of me" "warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?" "Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind"

"But when we sat by her flickering fire at night, she was most weird; for then, keeping Estella's hand drawn through her arm...she extorted from her by dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular letters, the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated"