Quotes · verified word for word in the text
Oliver Twist quotes
11 quotes from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Source: Project Gutenberg e-text #730 (public domain in the USA), the text this site’s reader shows. Each quote is copied exactly from that text and links to its passage in the reader; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against the reader’s text.
“Please, sir, I want some more.”
— Spoken by a character · II. TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST’S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD
the law is a ass—a idiot.
— Spoken by a character · LI. AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY
There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.
“What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah, it’s a fine thing for the trade! Five of ’em strung up in a row, and none left to play booty, or turn white-livered!”
— Spoken by a character · VIII. OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN
Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.
“It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper,” said Mr. Bumble. “So cry away.”
— Mr. Bumble · XXXVII. IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN MATRIMONIAL CASES
“You shall read them, if you behave well,” said the old gentleman kindly; “and you will like that, better than looking at the outsides,—that is, some cases; because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”
— Spoken by a character · VIII. OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN
“Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.”
— Spoken by a character · XLIII. WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE
it is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.
— Mrs. Maylie · XXXIII. WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A SUDDEN CHECK
The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.
On Rose, sweet, gentle girl! 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.
— Spoken by a character · XXXIII. WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A SUDDEN CHECK