- Charles Dickens: A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is a profound secret and mystery to every other.
- Nelly: Until that secret is given to another to look after. And then perhaps two human creatures may know each other.
- [last lines]
- Actress: This is a tale of woe. This is a tale of sorrow. A love denied, a love restored, to live beyond tomorrow. Lest we think silence is the place to hide a heavy heart, remember, to love and be loved is life itself without which we are nought.
- [first lines]
- Mr. George Wharton Robinson: Our boys' curriculum is very wide. They perform a short play at the end of every term. Theater's an abiding interest of my wife... Ah, Mary, tea if you please.
- Mary: [arriving late] Yes, sir.
- Mr. George Wharton Robinson: Through the open door... Nelly, where were you? Mr. Benham has been here since 3:00.
- Nelly: I'm so sorry. Mr. Lambourne has been organizing the boys best he can.
- Mary: I lost all sense of time...
- [On the Poor and Giving]
- Charles Dickens: Last night, I sat next to a gentleman at dinner, and he asked me in some fury why it was that our city should help those who do not help themselves.
- Charles Dickens: By "those" he meant the many fallen women that we see around us every day, and their offspring, many who rely on this hospital today.
- Charles Dickens: I replied, "The two grim nurses, poverty and sickness, bring these children before you and preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. Their unnatural deaths form one third of the annual deaths in this great town."
- Charles Dickens: "But what of God?" he piously replied.
- Charles Dickens: "What Of him?" I said. "I feel sure God looks leniently on all vice that proceeds from human tenderness and natural passion."
- Charles Dickens: I hope we will, too, and give generously tonight.
- Charles Dickens: Tell me a secret.
- Nelly: What kind of secret?
- Charles Dickens: Anything...
- Nelly: My middle name is Lawless.
- [after visiting his grave]
- Nelly: Charles understood that however painful it is: we're alone; Whoever we're with, we are alone. He was right. Great Expectations.
- Catherine Dickens: 'Tis a Fiction designed to entertain.
- Nelly: Surely it's more than that. It changes us.