“Great Expectations, which was written in the afternoon of Dickens’s life and fame, has a quality of serene irony and even sadness, which puts it quite alone among his other works.” (Chesterton)

“The rise of Dickens is like the rising of a vast mob. This is not only because his tales are indeed as crowded and populous as towns: for truly it was not so much that Dickens appeared as that a hundred Dickens characters appeared.” (Chesterton)

“You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. I don’t say this by way of disparagement.” (Conrad)