Great Expectations Volume 1 Quotes

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Chapter 1

  • I called myself Pip
  • My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening.
  • the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip
  • "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"
  • A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg.
  • still hugging himself in both arms
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Chapter 2

  • established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up "by hand"
  • He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.
  • a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles
  • People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad
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Chapter 3

  • it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks
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Chapter 4

  • In his working-clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances
  • he always aided and comforted me when he could
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Chapter 5

  • "We don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur.—Would us, Pip?"
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Chapter 6

  • The fear of losing Joe's confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue.
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Chapter 7

  • I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.
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Chapter 8 - key event

  • we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it
  • The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate
  • It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else.
  • I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress
  • waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me
  • her light came along the dark passage like a star
  • "he is a common laboring boy"
  • Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.
  • I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.
  • I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.
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Chapter 9

  • That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me.
  • 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.
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Chapter 10

  • I knew it to be Joe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict
  • Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes
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Chapter 11

  • Like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and like Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.
  • or I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards
  • I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus
  • In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.
  • "Now you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me."
  • His spirit inspired me with great respect.
  • But I felt that the kiss was given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing.
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Chapter 12

  • Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella's moods
  • What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them?
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Chapter 13

  • it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his working-dress
  • I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow
  • I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe's trade. 
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Chapter 14

  • It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. 
  • Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account.
  • I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast.
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Chapter 15

  • I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella's reproach.
  • This morose journeyman had no liking for me.
  • There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words
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Chapter 17

  • So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass
  • It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.
  • She was not beautiful,—she was common, and could not be like Estella
  • "I want to be a gentleman on her account."
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Chapter 18

  • the smell of scented soap on his great hand
  • "he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations."
  • Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied with myself.
  • feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever known
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Chapter 19

  • "Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,—in fact, I think he is the dearest fellow that ever lived,—but he is rather backward in some things. For instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners."
  • "if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would hardly do him justice."
  • You are envious, Biddy, and grudging.
  • And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.
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