A Christmas Carol Quotes

“Big flashy things have my name written all over them. Well... not yet, give me time and a crayon.”
― Matt Smith

“Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“In short, I should have liked to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet be man enough to know its value”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Because thou hast made the Lord, which is thy refuge, even the most high they habitation. There shall be no evil before thee, neither shall any plague come by thy dwelling. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him."
-Peter Cratchit”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“There are many things which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Hallo, my fine fellow!”
“Hallo!” returned the boy.
“Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired.
“I should hope I did,” replied the lad.
“An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?—Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?”
“What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.
“What a delightful boy!” said Scrooge. “It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!”
“It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.
“Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”
“Walk-er!” exclaimed the boy.
“No, no,” said Scrooge, “I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell ’em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I’ll give you half-a-crown!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?
Ah, no!”
― Charles Dickens

“The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.”
― Charles Dickens

“Dickensian poverty tends to occur after Christmas in January. For it is then, with pockets empty, diary decimated and larder bare, that the general populace sinks into a collective pauper's hibernation until Valentine's Day.”
― Stewart Stafford

“At last, however, he began to think--as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Blažene žene: one nikad ništa ne rade dopola. One uvijek u sve unose svu strast.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was mu business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“It is required of every man,... that the spirit within him walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world... and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Tiny Tim is the personification of Scrooge's dormant conscience that he finally acknowledges and embraces in the end.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol & Other Holiday Tales

“Dying Hours by Stewart Stafford

All debts were settled on Christmas Eve,
Fail to do so, and there’d be no reprieve,
In the dying flame of a guttering candle,
Monies got paid, and cash got handled.

When the last customer left to journey home,
Quinn, the shop owner, found himself alone,
He stared at pooling shadows, no one there,
Told himself to hurry, be with those who care.

As he closed up, something screamed out,
A figure from out of the dark began to shout,
A man with no eyes begged alms for the dead,
Or any old soup with a thick slice of bread.

Quinn said he was a business, not a charity,
The man’s eyes opened with some clarity,
“Very well,” the man said, “Nothing’s free,”
“I’ll drag your soul to Hell, come with me!”

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“It is fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”
― Charles Dickens

“Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing”
― Charles Dickens, [A Christmas Carol (Puffin Chalk)] [By: Dickens, Charles] [October, 2014]

“The Christmas Crasher or Merry Crisis & Happy New Fear
(The Yule-Get-Yours Scapegoat)
A Poem by Stewart Stafford

A malevolent sprite in our living room,
A mouldy Púca in the Christmas tree,
Bauble-gleam eyes in festive branches,
A sulphur stink while we watch TV.

Swallowing a window candle flame;
A fire-eater’s trick to no applause,
Season’s sweets wolfed down—
Even wrappers, devoured without pause.

A fridge raid’s boozy-woozy walk,
A true eggnog nuisance — every inch,
Crash — a muffled, 'Timber! God rest ya!'
So loud, we thought it was The Grinch!

My parents demanded it come out:
"A wrecked tree and hangover’s enough!"
It pleaded against eviction in the cold,
Squatter’s rights for lack of sterner stuff!

Seated at the Xmas dinner table,
Tossing scraps to our strange ‘pet’ below,
Foghorn burp aria, a puked tinsel encore,
Pine-needle toothpick snores in fake snow.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford