“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”

“The anger of a meek man is like fire struck out of steel, hard to be got out, and when it is, soon gone.”

“But then the girl moved, and smiled, and pulled her hand from the grate- a gorgeous green stone clutched tightly in her grasp. It was covered with dust and cobwebs, but it was uncracked and unharmed.And, of course, completely fake.”

“Being generous often consists of simply extending a hand. That's hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your righteousness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal.”

“It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes.”

“I felt my true, unworthy self to be far away from his clutching grasp, hidden from his admiring gaze.”