Monday, February 7, 2011

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens

(image - Wikipedia)

It's a slow news day so, this day being the anniversary of his birth, I offer you some of my favorite quotes from Charles Dickens.  Happy birthday, Mr. Dickens.  You were a remarkable writer.

"That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." ~  (Great Expectations)

""Oh, gracious, why wasn't I born old and ugly?"  ~  (Barnaby Rudge)

"I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."  ~ (A Christmas Carol)

"There either is or is not, that’s the way things are. The colour of the day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it’s red. But what colour it may be in memory, depends on the day. I’m not going to tell you the story the way it happened. I’m going to tell it the way I remember it."  ~ (Great Expectations)  6/27/11 - POST PUBLICATION NOTE: I learned today that this is not a Dickens quote, but rather from the 1998 film Great Expectations based on the Dickens novel. The screenplay was written by Mitch Glazer.  I like it, anyway.
 
"He would make a lovely corpse." ~  (Martin Chuzzlewit)

"Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes" ~ (Nicholas Nickleby)

"I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."  (Great Expectations)


Tomorrow is also a day.

6 comments:

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Wooo Pat.... He wasn't the prettiest nail in the tool box, was he????? ha ha

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens. I don't think I ever knew when your birthday was, Charles!!!!! You were a remarkable writer for sure!!!!

Thanks Pat...
Hugs,
Betsy

George said...

Thanks for sharing these Dickens quotes with us. Thank you, too, for reminding us about his birthday.

Hilary said...

Fine quotes.. thanks for sharing them, Pat.

rhymeswithplague said...

I am so glad you started posting every day.

JanieGrace said...

Do you know which chapter in Great Expectations the "Tell it as I remember it" quote comes from?
Thanks for such a neat blog!

Pat - Arkansas said...

JanieGrace I am chagrined to say that after reading your comment I did some extensive research on the Internet where I learned that this is NOT a Dickens quote, but is from the 1998 movie Great Expectations written by Mitch Glazer.

I did a word/phrase search of the Dickens text and did not find it, so I assume that it is, indeed, part of a movie script, not from the pen of Charles Dickens.

I posted a correction in a new blog post (6/27/11).

If anyone has information to the contrary, or a reliable source which attributes those words to Charles Dickens, I would be delighted to have it.