Dickensian Quotes & Sayings

When it comes to referring to Dickens's life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian. — Matthew Pearl

I had this almost Dickensian look. I was quite fragile. — Rod Stewart

It hasn't snowed like this for years. Real, proper snow. Dickensian snow, — Sophie Kinsella

What was, was. The past defines itself. Historians refuse to accept that definition & instead superimpose their analysis of the past through the eyes of the present. Thus, history becomes a pale reflection of the present, while the true past is lost behind the reflected image presented by historians who would have us see what they believe, rather than what was. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore. — Stephen Fry

In one way, it is this sense of order and also love that, I think, really saved Eleanor Roosevelt's life. And in her own writing, she's very warm about her grandmother, even though, if you look at contemporary accounts, they're accounts of horror at the Dickensian scene that Tivoli represents: bleak and drear and dark and unhappy. But Eleanor Roosevelt in her own writings is not very unhappy about Tivoli. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

What can I say? I deal with it. I think I have come to terms with my absolutely hateful and vile childhood. No, I have, really. But I did hate it at the time. I resented it. There were elements of it that were positively Dickensian. — Richard Griffiths

I love touring Canada, and our Calgary fans are among the roughest and toughest. — Tommy Lee

His limp had been very pronounced that day, and he had been self-conscious, feeling - as he often did - as if he were playing the role of an impoverished governess in a Dickensian drama. — Hanya Yanagihara

I am not man or beast; I am bibliosexual, and a seedy bibliosexual who haunts the streets, laden with carrier bags held by blistered fingers, stooping under the weight of the rucksack that has brought on sciatica and a Dickensian demeanour. — Robin Ince

[Luke, holding stormtrooper helmet.] Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not,/ yet have I taken both uniform and life/ From thee. What manner of a man wert thou?/ A man of inf'nite jest or cruelty?/ A man with helpmate and with children too?/ A man who hath his Empire serv'd with pride?/ A man, perhaps, who wish'd for perfect peace?/ What'er thou wert, goodman, thy pardon grant/ Unto the one who took thy place: e'en me. — Ian Doescher

His copy was full of lofty echoes: Greek Tragedy; Damocle's sword; manna from heaven; the myth of Sisyphus; the last of the Mohicans; hydra-headed and Circe-voiced; experiments with truth; discovery of India; biblical resonance; the lessons of Vedanta; the centre does not hold; the road not taken; the mimic men; for whom the bell tolls; a hundred visions and revisions; the power and the glory; the heart of the matter; the heart of darkness; the agony and the ecstasy; sands of time; riddle of the Sphinx; test of tantalus; murmurs of mortality; Falstaffian figure; Dickensian darkness; ... — Tarun J. Tejpal

How is that for service? Do you know how many men onboard would kill for the use of a spoon?"
"And do you know," she retorted, "how many men I can kill with a spoon? — Susan Dennard

We have decided to lock people up for social deviancy these days. We tell ourselves that we're not running debtors' prisons, that this isn't Dickensian — Linda Tirado

I had a kind of Dickensian childhood. — Shaun Cassidy

Intricately plotted, beautifully paced, The Music of the Spheres is an elegant historical novel rich in detail, at times Dickensian in its description of London. Elizabeth Redfern has made an exciting debut. — Martha Grimes

I'm timeless, I got that Dickensian, London street-urchin look in high school. I'll never be in style, but I'll always be different. — Stevie Nicks

When one bearded gentleman passed by the line and exclaimed, "Well, he looks like me," Lincoln was heard to observe: "I did not look at him, but I take it that he is a very handsome man." Meeting a gunpowder manufacturer burdened with the Dickensian name of "Hazard," he could not resist advising him to "keep his powder dry." And when one passerby solemnly lectured him, "the flag of our country is looking at you," Lincoln shot back: "I hope it won't lose any of its eyes. — Harold Holzer

My dad is kind of a rascal, like in a Dickensian sense. He just goes from career to career. — Benjamin Walker

He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud. — Victor Hugo

The farther a man follows the rainbow, the harder it is for him to get back to the life which he left starving like an old dog. — Jane Bowles

As a rule, I do not approve of messing around with coffee. No sugar, no milk, no chocolate, hazelnuts, cinnamon, no nothing ... Just drink it black, the way God does — Klay Thompson

Let's face it: The Republican Party is no longer a broad-based conservative party in the historically accepted sense. It is an oligarchy with a well-developed public relations strategy designed to soothe and anesthetize its followers with appeals to tradition, security, and family even as it pursues a radical agenda that would transform the country into a Dickensian corporatocracy at home and a belligerent military empire abroad. — Mike Lofgren

Considering what a prolific writer Dickens was, the word 'Dickensian' could legitimately cover a vast thematic territory, explaining at least some of the variety of its applications. — Matthew Pearl

Emotional intelligence grows through perception. Look around at your present situation and observe it through the level of feeling. — Deepak Chopra

The woman I'm attracted to won't be based on what I write down on paper. It's going to be what I feel. — Apolo Ohno

It's odd how much our perception of cities owes to stories and films.We talk about 'Dickensian' London as if it had some real existence beyond the page. Deep down, despite the evidence of our lives, we can't really believe that anything is ever made up. — Joel Lane

Some people might say my coming out after just winning the MVP award is heroic, and I understand that. — Sheryl Swoopes

Citizens must pressure the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the Centers for Disease Control and other relevant governmental agencies to make greening our hospitals and medical centers a top priority so that they themselves don't create even more illness. — Andrew Weil

Listen to me, Whit. Don't ever struggle so hard trying to come up with something to say that you don't say anything. That's the real crime because you're never, ever guaranteed another chance. As long as you say something, they'll know exactly how you feel. — Laurel Ulen Curtis

I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign. — Cato The Younger

It was my angry, Dickensian novel, I suppose. It was cathartic - I expended a lot of frustration on that one. — Richard Helms

In the past, I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby, Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics, Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all. — A. N. Wilson

Sometimes my family thinks I've made my childhood a bit more Dickensian than it was, and it probably wasn't all that bad. But I was uncomfortable as a kid. — Tracy Letts

People say, 'You're like Dickens', but I'm not like Dickens. Zadie Smith is a Dickensian writer because she's writing about society now, just as Dickens was writing about his society. — Sarah Waters

Yes," said Burt, and he looked pleased. But I hadn't spoken. I considered this for a moment. — Barbara O'Brien

Surprisingly, it was not an American but a British company that opened an amusement park in 2007 called Dickens World, located in the English county of Kent, complete with an Ebenezer Scrooge Haunted House, a Great Expectations Boat Ride and the as-advertised 'costumed Dickensian characters.' — Matthew Pearl

As an undergraduate at Amherst College, I was devoted to Dickensian novels and antiestablishment journalism while marginally fulfilling premedical requirements. — Harold E. Varmus