QuoteProject
I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.
Charles Dickens
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote evokes imagery of sadness and despair, using a damp window as a metaphor for emotional turmoil.

In this quote, Charles Dickens illustrates the powerful connection between the external environment and internal emotions. The dampness on the window, likened to a goblin's tears, symbolizes sorrow and evokes a sense of melancholy, emphasizing how our surroundings can reflect or influence our emotional states.

Themes

DampWindowTearsSadnessGoblin

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary analysis discussion about how nature reflects emotions in Dickens' work.

More from Charles Dickens

I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
Charles DickensRead
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
Charles DickensRead
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
Charles DickensRead
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
Charles DickensRead
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Charles DickensRead
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
Charles DickensRead

Similar quotes

There is romance, the genuine glinting stuff, in typewriters, and not merely in their development from clumsy giants into agile dwarfs, but in the history of their manufacture, which is filled with raids, battles, lonely pioneers, great gambles, hope, fear, despair, triumph. If some of our novels could be written by the typewriters instead of on them, how much better they would be.
J. B. PriestleyRead
Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life? I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.
Rufus WainwrightRead
I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.
G. H. HardyRead
I like to act in films, I like to shoot 'em, I like to direct 'em, I like to be around 'em. I like the feel of it and it's something I respect. It doesn't make any difference whether it's a crappy film or a good film. Anyone who can make a film, I already love. But I feel sorry if they don't put any thought in it because then they missed the boat.
John CassavetesRead
Beauty ...is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
Oscar WildeRead
In the old days, people shared music; they didn't care who made it. A song would be owned by a village, and anyone could sing it, change the words, whatever. That is how humans treated music until the late 19th century. Now, with the Internet, we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music.
Ryuichi SakamotoRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.