{"quotes":[{"text":"He very soon acquired the reputation of being the best public speaker of his time. He had taken pains to master the art, approaching it with scientific precision. On the morning of a day on which he was giving a speech, he once told Wilkie Collins, he would take a long walk during which he would establish the various headings to be dealt with. Then, in his mind’s eye, he would arrange them as on a cart wheel, with himself as the hub and each heading a spoke. As he dealt with a subject, the relevant imaginary spoke would drop out. When there were no more spokes, the speech was at an end. Close observers of Dickens noticed that while he was speaking he would make a quick action of the finger at the end of each topic, as if he were knocking the spoke away.","author":"Simon Callow","tags":["charles-dickens","public-speaking","speech"],"id":11741,"author_id":"Simon+Callow"},{"text":"When the last autumn of Dickens's life was over, he continued to work through his final winter and into spring. This is how all of us writers give away the days and years and decades of our lives in exchange for stacks of paper with scratches and squiggles on them. And when Death calls, how many of us would trade all those pages, all that squandered lifetime-worth of painfully achieved scratches and squiggles, for just one more day, one more fully lived and experienced day? And what price would we writers pay for that one extra day spent with those we ignored while we were locked away scratching and squiggling in our arrogant years of solipsistic isolation?Would we trade all those pages for a single hour? Or all of our books for one real minute?","author":"Dan Simmons","tags":["age","charles-dickens","death","life","old-age","regret","time","writers","writing"],"id":57526,"author_id":"Dan+Simmons"},{"text":"I believe life is an education meant to teach us the need to be better people.  And I believe this learning often takes place through trial and error which may mean being an awful person at times before clearly seeing and grasping the necessity to improve. If you don't agree with me, just ask Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge.  I think Charles Dickens got it quite right.","author":"Richelle E. Goodrich","tags":["change-your-life","charles-dickens","ebeneezer-scrooge","good-character","good-people","goodness","growth","kindness","learning","life","life","richelle","richelle-e-goodrich","richelle-goodrich"],"id":60209,"author_id":"Richelle+E.+Goodrich"},{"text":"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!' Fred, A Christmas Carol.","author":"Charles Dickens","tags":["celebration","charles-dickens","christmas"],"id":61021,"author_id":"Charles+Dickens"},{"text":"I like Mr. Dickens’ books much better than yours, Papa. Said one of Thackeray’s daughters.","author":"David Markson","tags":["charles-dickens","children","william-makepeace-thackeray"],"id":69905,"author_id":"David+Markson"},{"text":"Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!‘I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!’ Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. ‘The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this.’” “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset.”  “And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!","author":"Charles Dickens","tags":["all-things-new","charles-dickens","christmas","repentance","transformation"],"id":71402,"author_id":"Charles+Dickens"},{"text":"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.).","author":"Anonymous","tags":["belief","charles-dickens","ever-after","everlasting-life","faith","paradise","resurrection","sydney-carton","tale-of-two-cities"],"id":97694,"author_id":"Anonymous"},{"text":"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall neve.","author":"Anonymous","tags":["belief","charles-dickens","ever-after","everlasting-life","faith","paradise","resurrection","sydney-carton","tale-of-two-cities"],"id":204747,"author_id":"Anonymous"},{"text":"My impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse.","author":"Charles Dickens","tags":["charles-dickens","david-copperfield","humorous"],"id":225930,"author_id":"Charles+Dickens"},{"text":"A man would die tonight of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pitty in all the glittering multitude.","author":"Charles Dickens","tags":["charles-dickens","death","great-expectations","stars"],"id":231535,"author_id":"Charles+Dickens"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":24,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}