“I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age.”

“Are you thankful for not being young?''Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off, don't you see?...”

“Because, sir, the way I look at it is that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!”

“If I were to live a hundred years, and write three novels in each, I should never be so proud of any of them, as I am of Pickwick, feeling as I do, that it has made its own way, and hoping, as I must own I do hope, that long after my hand is withered as the pens it held, Pickwick will be found on many a dusty shelf with many a better work.”

“Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young: all my life might have been.”

“My dear young lady, crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.”

“To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.”