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Charles Dickens

" The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on mystery readers. Mystery readers have sci-fi readers. Sci-fi can look down on fantasy. And yes, fantasy readers have their own snobbishness. I‚Äôll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction. Shakespeare wrote popular fiction‚Äîuntil he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was real artist. Edgar Allan Poe tied himself in knots because no one realized he was a genius. The core of the problem is how we want to define ‚Äúliterature‚Äù. The Latin root simply means ‚Äúletters‚Äù. Those letters are either delivered‚Äîthey connect with an audience‚Äîor they don‚Äôt. For some, that audience is a few thousand college professors and some critics. For others, its twenty million women desperate for romance in their lives. Those connections happen because the books successfully communicate something real about the human experience. Sure, there are trashy books that do really well, but that‚Äôs because there are trashy facets of humanity. What people value in their books‚Äîand thus what they count as literature‚Äîreally tells you more about them than it does about the book. "

Charles Dickens

Literature , Reading

related quotes

" The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact business at noon, and to make an appointment, by the twopenny post, a day or two previous. "

Charles Dickens

Funny , Sarcasm

" That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never endure the notion of their children laying their heads on their pillows; in short , that there never more could be , for them or theirs , any laying of heads upon pillows at all , unless the prisioner's head was taken off.The Attorney General during the trial of Mr. Darnay "

Charles Dickens

Court , dickens

" I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion. "

Charles Dickens

Funny , Marriage

" I can't go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn't help it, upon my honour."Upon your what?" growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. "Here! Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys,to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it'll choke me dead. "

Charles Dickens

Funny

" Why look'e, young gentleman," said Toby, "when a man keeps himself so very ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over his head with nobody a-prying and smelling about it, it's rather a starling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman (however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with at conweniency) circumstanced as you are. "

Charles Dickens

Funny

" A bran' new book is a beautiful thing, all promise and fresh pages, the neatly squared spine, the brisk sense of a journey beginning. But a well-worn book also has its pleasures, the soft caress and give of the paper's edges, the comfort, like an old shawl, of an oft-read story. "

Charles Dickens

Books

" There are a good many books, are there not, my boy?‚Äù said Mr. Brownlow, observing the curiosity with which Oliver surveyed the shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling.‚ÄúA great number, sir,‚Äù replied Oliver; ‚ÄúI never saw so many.‚Äù‚ÄúYou shall read them if you behave well,‚Äù said the old gentleman kindly; ‚Äúand you will like that, better than looking at the outsides, - that is, in some cases, because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts. "

Charles Dickens

Books

" ...and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. "

Charles Dickens

Books , Learning

" A man reading the Dickens novel wished that it might never end. Men read a Dickens story six times because they knew it so well. "

Charles Dickens

Books

" Are we to deny our daughters the works of Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck or Shakespeare?....Where is the equality in banning girls from enjoying wonderful works of literature?....What kind of society defines suitable reading material by sex? This is indefensible censorship encouraging ignorance and bias. [About Caitlin Moran's statement.] "

Charles Dickens

antifeminism

" Who is Mr. Jasper?"Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle, and my music-master.""You do not love him?""Ugh!" She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror."You know that he loves you?""O, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging to her new resource. "Don't tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her."Try to tell me more about it, darling.""Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while, and stay with me afterwards.""My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way.""He has never spoken to me about - that. Never.""What has he done?""He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than ever.""What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?""I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is.""And was this all, to-night?""This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me - who am so much afraid of him - courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself. "

Charles Dickens

Love , Fear

" There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. "

Charles Dickens

Marriage

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