great expectations by charles dickens : sentence starters
this is a list of 100 quotes from the 1860-1861 novel great expectations by charles dickens to be used as roleplay starters. feel free to change pronouns and the like!
❛ ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies. ❜
❛ i think the romans must have aggravated one another very much with their noses. perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence. ❜
❛ he tried to murder me. i should have been a dead man if you had not come up. ❜
❛ i sometimes have sick fancies. ❜
❛ i am yellow skin and bone. ❜
❛ come here! you may kiss me, if you like. ❜
❛ what could i become with these surroundings? ❜
❛ it is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. ❜
❛ i was your first teacher, though; wasn’t i? ❜
❛ you know best, _____; but don’t you think you are happier as you are? ❜
❛ i am not at all happy as i am. i am disgusted with my calling and my life. ❜
❛ i have unusual business to transact with you. ❜
❛ i want to know no more than i know. ❜
❛ of course you’ll go wrong somehow, but that’s no fault of mine. ❜
❛ you may get cheated, robbed, and murdered, in london. but there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you. ❜
❛ well! it’s all over now, i hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you’ll forgive me for having knocked you about so. ❜
❛ i want to see the man who’ll rob me. ❜
❛ the office is one thing, and private life is another. ❜
❛ you know what i am, don’t you? ❜
❛ i’m wrong in these clothes. ❜
❛ i knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that i loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. ❜
❛ so you kiss my hand as if i were a queen, eh? ❜
❛ what was fit company for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now. ❜
❛ you must know that i have no heart. ❜
❛ i have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, i have no doubt, and, of course, if it ceased to beat i should cease to be. but you know what i mean. i have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense. ❜
❛ i’ll tell you what real love is. it is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter—as i did! ❜
❛ this may lead to miserable things. ❜
❛ how did you think he looked? — i dressed him. ❜
❛ i believe it was settled you should meet me? ❜
❛ i should hardly have thought this was your beat. ❜
❛ did your client commit the robbery? ❜
❛ we have no choice, you and i, but to obey our instructions. we are not free to follow our own devices, you and i. ❜
❛ you speak of yourself as if you are someone else. ❜
❛ you silly boy, how can you talk such nonsense? ❜
❛ my dear _____, we are getting on badly. ❜
❛ i always thought this was business, this was the way to confront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. ❜
❛ what a fellow of resource you are! really your business powers are very remarkable. ❜
❛ i think you might have written to me about these sad matters. ❜
❛ i am not angry, but i am hurt. ❜
❛ i don’t ask you what you owe, because you don’t know; and if you did know, you wouldn’t tell me; you would say less. ❜
❛ choose your bridge, _____, and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the thames over the centre arch of the bridge, and you know the end of it. serve a friend with it, and you may know the end of it too but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end. ❜
❛ you stock and stone! you cold, cold heart! ❜
❛ what? do you reproach me for being cold? you? ❜
❛ you should know i am what you have made me. ❜
❛ why should i call you mad, i of all people? ❜
❛ who taught me to be proud? who praised me when i learnt my lesson? ❜
❛ who taught me to be hard? who praised me when i learnt my lesson? ❜
❛ i have never shown any weakness that i can charge myself with. ❜
❛ i must be taken as i have been made. the success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me. ❜
❛ moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. can the candle help it? ❜
❛ do you want me then, to deceive and entrap you? ❜
❛ i am glad to believe you have repented and recovered yourself. ❜
❛ i was sent for life. it’s death to come back. ❜
❛ what precautions can be taken against your being recognised and seized? ❜
❛ don’t tell me anything. i don’t want to know anything; i am not curious. ❜
❛ take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. there’s no better rule. ❜
❛ i have been bred to no calling, and i am fit for nothing. ❜
❛ to judge from appearances, you’re out of luck. ❜
❛ luck changes. perhaps yours is going to change. ❜
❛ i am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be. ❜
❛ who am i, who am i, for god’s sake, that i should be kind! ❜
❛ you made your own snares. i never made them. ❜
❛ _____, you know i love you. you know that i have loved you long and dearly. ❜
❛ it seems that there are sentiments, fancies—i don’t know how to call them—which i am not able to comprehend. when you say you love me, i know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. you address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. ❜
❛ it is in my nature. it is in the nature formed within me. ❜
❛ say no more. we shall never understand each other. ❜
❛ you will get me out of your thoughts in a week. ❜
❛ you are part of my existence, part of myself. ❜
❛ under existing circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once in it. don’t break cover too soon. lie close. ❜
❛ i know that what is said between you and me goes no further. ❜
❛ i don’t like to leave you here, though i cannot doubt your being safer here than near me. ❜
❛ as we are going in the same direction, _____, we may walk together. ❜
❛ but perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart? ❜
❛ there have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and i want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you. ❜
❛ what have i done! what have i done! ❜
❛ believe this: when she first came to me, i meant to save her from misery like my own. at first i meant no more. ❜
❛ if you knew all my story, you would have some compassion for me and a better understanding of me. ❜
❛ you don’t think your breathing is affected, my dear boy? you seem to breathe quickly. ❜
❛ mind! i admit nothing. ❜
❛ i know what you did, and how you did it. ❜
❛ for whose sake would you reveal the secret? ❜
❛ how dare you? you’re not in a fit state to come here, if you can’t come here without spluttering like a bad pen. ❜
❛ i’ll let you go. i’ll let you go to the moon, i’ll let you go to the stars. all in good time. ❜
❛ ah! the burnt child dreads the fire! ❜
❛ i think i know the delights of freedom. ❜
❛ if all goes well, you will be perfectly free and safe again, within a few hours. ❜
❛ i will never stir from your side when i am suffered to be near you. please god, i will be as true to you, as you have been to me! ❜
❛ i am very much afraid i must go, _____, when you most need me. ❜
❛ i shall always need you, because i shall always love you. ❜
❛ in short, my dear boy, will you come to me? ❜
❛ look angry at me, _____. strike me, _____. tell me of my ingratitude. don’t be so good to me! ❜
❛ in heaven’s name, what does it matter to you where i am going? ❜
❛ tell me, as an old, old friend. have you quite forgotten her? ❜
❛ i am greatly changed. i wonder you know me. ❜
❛ you have always held your place in my heart. ❜
❛ to me, parting is a painful thing. ❜
❛ i have been bent and broken, but—i hope—into a better shape. ❜
