“Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy.”

“My heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope, in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind.”

“I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart,and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy, and whose greatattribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happinesscan never be attained.”

“But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield”

“Now, I know I’m going to break your hearts, but I am forced to leave you. You must call up all your fortitude, and try to bear it... “Bob swore!” - as the Englishman said for “Good night”, when he first learnt French, and thought it so like English. “Bob swore,” my ducks!" (Chapter XXII)”

“When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are," replied the girl steadily, "give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths--even such as you, who have home, friends, other admireres, everything to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffin-lid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? Pity us, lady--pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering.”

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”