“He'd write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!”

“se there was a matter of half a ream of brown paper stuck upon me, from first to last. As I laid all of a heap in our kitchen, plastered all over, you might have thought I was a large brown-paper parcel, chock full of nothing but groans. Did I groan loud, Wackford, or did I groan soft?' asked Mr Squeers, appealing to his son.”

“Dear Sir, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter, and to assure you that my time and attention are far too much occupied, to admit of my having the pleasure you propose to me.Faithfully YoursCharles DickensThe Letters of Charles DickensThe Pilgrim EditionVolume 9: 1859-1861”

“When they coughed, they coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink . . .”

“I do must decidedly object, and have a most invincible and powerful repugnance to that frequent reference to the Almighty in small matters, which so many excellent persons consider necessary in the education of children. I think it monstrous to hold the source of inconceivable mercy and goodness perpetually up to them as an avenging and wrathful God who - making them in His wisdom children before they are men and women - is to punish them awfully for every little venial offence which is almost a necessary part of that stage of life.”

“Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her.”

“For a week or a fortnight I can write prodigiously in a retired place (as at Broadstairs), and a day in London sets me up again and starts me. But the toil and labour of writing, day after day, without that magic lantern, is IMMENSE!!... My figures seem disposed to stagnate without crowds about them.”