Browse 7 quotations connecting Charles Dickens with Community, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend, Sketches by Boz. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend, Sketches by Boz.
“Oh Floy, take me home, and never leave me!”
Paul’s appeal to Florence makes his sister and home inseparable sources of safety and affection during his decline, intensifying the novel’s sibling bond.
Source note: Dombey and Son, Chapter 16, Project Gutenberg #821. The words are associated with the dying child Paul and his sister Florence; they are fictional dialogue, not Dickens autobiography.
“You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby.”
Florence’s invitation joins three generations in one simple act: bringing her father into her home to meet the child who helped prompt their reconciliation.
Source note: Dombey and Son, Chapter 59, Project Gutenberg #821. Florence invites Mr Dombey to return with her and meet her son Paul.
“I wish that we should know and trust each other, Florence.”
Edith deliberately asks for mutual knowledge and trust with Florence before marriage joins their households, framing family relationship as something that must be built.
Source note: Dombey and Son, Chapter 30, Project Gutenberg #821. Edith speaks to Florence while inviting her into closer confidence.
“Never let us be parted any more, Papa. Never let us be parted any more!”
The repeated plea marks reconciliation as a commitment to renewed family presence after years in which pride and neglect kept father and daughter emotionally apart.
Source note: Dombey and Son, Chapter 59, Project Gutenberg #821. Florence speaks while embracing her father after returning to him.
“You are dear to me, Florence. I did not think that anything could ever be so dear to me”
Edith’s attachment to Florence becomes an unexpected form of family affection within a household otherwise marked by coldness, pride and strained marriage.
Source note: Dombey and Son, Chapter 35, Project Gutenberg #821. Edith speaks to Florence; the line belongs to their fictional relationship inside the Dombey household.
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.”
Usefulness is defined through reducing another person’s burden, making service a direct measure of value.
Source note: Book III, Chapter 9.
“There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.”
Dickens treats Christmas as a socially charged name that can awaken affectionate memory, reconciliation and family feeling before any particular celebration or gift is described.
Source note: Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” Chapter II, “A Christmas Dinner,” Project Gutenberg #882. The sentence introduces a passage about family gatherings, forgotten quarrels and renewed social feeling; it is narrator prose, not dialogue by a fictional character.