“My prayer is simple my dear one, my dear one. May you never need understand. My prayer is for peacetime, my child, my child. Live it well and this life can be grand.”

“I wish to you sunshine, my dear one, my dear one. And treetops for you to soar past. I wish to you innocence, my child, my child. I pray you don't grow up too fast.Never know pain, my dear one, my dear one. Nor hunger nor fear nor sorrow. Never know war, my child, my child. Remember your hope for tomorrow.”

“Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”

“You have been so careful of me that I never had a child's heart. You have trained me so well that I never dreamed a child's dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, Father ,from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child's belief or a child's fear.Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to it. " My dear Louisa," said he, you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, my dear girl.”

“My dear child...fault is an empty word. It is a coin with only one side. It is not a reason or an excuse.”

“How silly, my dear; don't you know that if I came here as a child, then most of me never left?”