Starring: Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi, Ben Whishaw, Paul Whitehouse, Gwendoline Christie, Benedict Wong, Aneurin Barnard, Daisy May Cooper, Morfydd Clark, Anthony Welsh, Rosalind Eleazar

OUR RATING: ★★★½

Story:

Comedy drama directed and co-written by Armando Iannucci. The story follows David (Dev Patel), a burgeoning young writer, from orphaned infancy to adulthood as he befriends a collection of eccentric characters on a journey of love, acceptance, and self-discovery in Victorian England.

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Our Favorite Quotes:

'You need to love those that help you out, and help out the ones you love.' - Peggotty (The Personal History of David Copperfield) Click To Tweet 'Don't worry. You'll make it through. And you'll have quite the ride on the way.' - David Copperfield (The Personal History of David Copperfield) Click To Tweet

Best Quotes

[as he begins narrating his life story]
David Copperfield: Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own story, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these moments must show.

[as Clara is about to give birth to David]
Peggotty: Just try to pretend it doesn’t hurt.
Clara Copperfield: It does!

[as he’s narrating his life from birth]
David Copperfield: I remember Peggotty’s rough fingers, like a pocket nutmeg grater.

David Copperfield: I can easily recall people of strong character and weave their memory into the life I was about to lead.

Emily: Is your mother really a lady?
Young David: Uh, yes, I think so.
Emily: Does she attend to her correspondence and receive callers in the drawing room?
Young David: I don’t know. A gentleman with big hands calls to admire our geranium.
Emily: I should like to become a lady.
Young David: He has two eyebrows. I say eyebrows rather than eyes because they’re much more important in his face.

[after David’s mother, Clara, marries Murdstone; referring to his sister, Jane]
Peggotty: She looks like she’s made of wax.
Young David: Or Dutch cheese.

[as Murdstone is cruelly disciplining young David]
Murdstone: Now, whenever I have an obstinate dog or horse, I beat him, hmm? I conquer him, even if it costs him every last drop of blood he has.
Young David: I’m trying to learn, sir, but I can’t when you and Miss Murdstone are watching me!
Murdstone: Oh, can’t you indeed?
[young David bites Murdstone’s hand]

[after young David is sent away to lodge with Mr. Micawber]
Mr. Micawber: London is full of more wonders and wickedness than all the cities of the earth.
Young David: [mimics Micawber] Cities.
Mr. Micawber: And it’s ours, David, to go wherever we choose.
[young David starts walking ahead]
Mr. Micawber: No, not down there. Creditors make that road impassable. Two tailors, and a most unreasonable muffin man.
[as they keep walking ahead]
Mr. Micawber: More creditors. A knife grinder, a dairyman, and an unhinged florist. You find us fallen back financially, but something shall turn up.
Young David: But won’t we run out of roads?
[as his creditors spot him]
Mr. Micawber: I think we already have. Run!

[as the bailiffs are taking away their possessions]
Mr. Micawber: That is not your chicken. You’re stealing an honest man’s chicken!
David Copperfield: At least let him finish his meal, you malicious apes.

Creakle: Your stepfather informs me…
Tungay: Me.
Creakle: That your mama is ill.
Tungay: Ill.
David Copperfield: How ill is she?
Jane Murdstone: Tell him.
Murdstone: Jane.
Tungay: Jane.
David Copperfield: Tell me, please.
Creakle: I won’t deceive you. Very ill.
Tungay: Very ill.
David Copperfield: Very ill?
Tungay: Very ill?
Creakle: Dangerously ill.
Tungay: She’s dead.
Murdstone: We’re very sorry.

[as David breaks a bottle after he’s been told his mother has already been buried]
Creakle: Copperfield, I will allow you that. You are upset. But do not…
Tungay: Do not!
[David angrily breaks another bottle]
Creakle: Right! That’s it! Half a day’s pay!
David Copperfield: Half of nothing is nothing!
Jane Murdstone: Given the manner of your overreaction, it is a good thing you were not at the funeral.
David Copperfield: You can’t take from someone who has nothing!
Tungay: Nothing!

David Copperfield: I deserve more than this. Far more!

[to Murdstone and Jane]
David Copperfield: You two are ghosts. You’ve always been dead.

David Copperfield: Excuse me. Do you know where Miss Trotwood lives?
Street Sweeper: About a mile up that way. Good luck. She’s fierce like a birthing badger.

[to the woman on the donkey in her garden]
Betsey Trotwood: Get off my lawn! I’ll box your ears! Off you go! This is a donkey-free zone!
[she shoves the woman off the donkey]
Betsey Trotwood: Move it! Cheek of it.

Mr. Dick: Somebody, please! King Charles I. Are we certain that he’s dead?
Betsey Trotwood: When last seen in public, his head was not attached to his body.
Mr. Dick: Good. Thank you. Much obliged.

David Copperfield: I’m your nephew! I’m David Copperfield. From The Rookery.
Betsey Trotwood: Mr Dick!
David Copperfield: I’ve been ill-used and put to work not fit for me. And you’re the only family I have.

[as Betsey brings David into her house and he faints]
Betsey Trotwood: Hello? Can you wake up?
[she pours liquid into his mouth and David becomes conscious]
David Copperfield: What are you doing?
Betsey Trotwood: Medicine. Reviving you.
David Copperfield: This is salad dressing.
Betsey Trotwood: Is it? I thought it was Armagnac. Don’t have my spectacles on.
David Copperfield: Do you have a lettuce somewhere covered in ointment?

Mr. Dick: His head is entirely removed from his body? We’re sure?
Betsey Trotwood: Let’s leave Charles’s head on one side for the moment, Mr Dick.
Mr. Dick: Pick it up later. Understood.

[referring to David]
Betsey Trotwood: What shall we do with him?
David Copperfield: One thing you could do is…
Mr. Dick: If I were you, I’d wash him.

[as she sees another donkey in her garden]
Betsey Trotwood: There must be fifty of them. It’s an infestation!
[she leaves and Mr. Dick hands the plate of cakes to David]
David Copperfield: Thank you.
[they watch as Betsey goes to deal with the donkey rider on her lawn]
David Copperfield: Is my aunt really going to…?
Mr. Dick: To visit violence upon the boy? Yes. She’s a remarkable woman. Very kind.

Mr. Dick: [to David] Your aunt gave me that kite to encourage me out of the house from time to time while she drinks coffee and is quiet. I’m still in the house.

David Copperfield: I see you’re writing stories about Charles I.
Mr. Dick: Why? What makes you say that?
David Copperfield: There seems to be the occasional reference to him. Everywhere.

David Copperfield: Aunt, Mr. Dick, is he at all…?
Betsey Trotwood: Did he mention Charles I?
David Copperfield: Quite a lot.
Betsey Trotwood: He connects his, um, particular situation with great disturbance and agitation. But his mind’s sharp as a surgeon’s lancet, make no mistake.
David Copperfield: I think I may be able to help him.
Betsey Trotwood: Well, on you go back up, Trotwood.

David Copperfield: Trotwood?
Betsey Trotwood: Yes, I thought I might call you Trotwood. If I’m to financially support my nephew, I want to like his name.
David Copperfield: Trotwood, that’s me. Yes.

[as he sees a donkey rider on the lawn]
David Copperfield: Donkeys! Shoo! Shoo! Come on! On your way. I’ll tan your hide and put you in a stew! I’m a huge maniac!

[after meeting Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes]
Agnes: A bow. I’m so rarely bowed to.
David Copperfield: I hope I’ve started a new fashion. Unless you deem it inappropriate.
Agnes: No, not at all, Trotwood. I shall demand it at our every meeting from now on, as if I’m an empress. Or mad.

Mr. Wickfield: Is it too early for sherry?
Betsey, Agnes: A little early.
Mr. Wickfield: Port, then. It’s seven in the evening in Singapore. I imagine.
Agnes: Father, it’s too early to drink.

David Copperfield: I have a thirst for education that sadly has never been quenched.
Agnes: Really? You give the impression of a very well-watered intellect.
Mr. Wickfield: All this talk of thirst is making me thirsty.

Mr. Dick: Can you just confirm something? My head…
Agnes: Yes?
Mr. Dick: Am I right? My head is connected to my body?
Agnes: Well, let me have a look. Yes. I can confirm without any doubt that it is.
Mr. Dick: Well, that’s good to hear.

See more The Personal History of David Copperfield Quotes

Mr. Wickfield: This calls for a celebration.
Betsey Trotwood: Yes. Hooray!
Mr. Wickfield: Hooray. I was thinking more along the lines of…
Betsey Trotwood: Tea? Janet!
Janet: Yes.
Betsey Trotwood: Tea.

[after meeting Mrs. Strong]
David Copperfield: What do you have in your hand?
Agnes: It’s nothing.
Mrs. Strong: Oh, just a small piece of wall. But all is well. Follow me.

[as a piece of the ceiling collapses]
Steerforth: Forgive the collapsing. Old Wickfield’s funds are drying up.
Markham: Unlike the man himself.
Steerforth: Loves his drink. Do you know Wickfield?
[imitates Wickfield]
David Copperfield: “Is it too early for sherry?”

Agnes: How were Uriah’s ministrations?
David Copperfield: He’s like a human cold in the head. He gets so close.
Agnes: Yes. It’s as if he lives in your nose and is keen to get home.
[they both laugh]

Uriah Heep: Might I be so bold, Master Copperfield, as to ask you to come to tea? With me and mother.
David Copperfield: What a shame. I fear I have a prior engagement on that date.
Uriah Heep: On which date? I don’t believe I mentioned a date.

David Copperfield: My name is David! Not Daisy! Not Trot! My name is David Copperfield!
Steerforth: Then why don’t you go by it?

[as David is taking tea reluctantly with Uriah and his mother]
Uriah Heep: Do you mock me?
David Copperfield: You seem to search for mockery. That was meant sincerely, Uriah.
Uriah Heep: Uriah! Did you hear that? He said Uriah.
Mrs. Heep: I did.
Uriah Heep: Unprompted, mother.
Mrs. Heep: And him a gentleman.
Uriah Heep: It is like the blowing of old breezes to hear you say Uriah. It thrills me to the stomach.

Uriah Heep: Time is an issue? Are you worried humbleness is an infectious disease?
David Copperfield: Oh, no. I cannot stay too long is all.
Mrs. Heep: You can if I bar the door.
Uriah Heep: We could keep him as a little pet.
[they both laugh]
David Copperfield: I beg your pardon?
Uriah Heep: It was a joke. I’m sorry. It was a joke. I’ve been attempting to learn gentlemen’s humor from a book.
Mrs. Heep: He has.

[as Uriah attempts to blackmail David]
Uriah Heep: How would you feel about helping me secure a position with Mr. Wickfield?
David Copperfield: I have a mind to throw this cake at you. It will break a rib.
Uriah Heep: You’re very fond of violence, aren’t you?

Dora Spenlow: You were staring slightly. Is there something wrong with me?
David Copperfield: No. Goodness me, no. I apologize for my rudeness.
Dora Spenlow: Oh. He’s apologising, Jip. Shall we forgive him?
[she bends her ear to her dog as if listening]
Dora Spenlow: He says we shall.
David Copperfield: Thank you, Jip.
[holds up her dog and makes out her dog is replying]
Dora Spenlow: Think nothing of it, sir.
David Copperfield: Speaks very well.
Dora Spenlow: It was actually me. I like to pretend he speaks. Some people think it idiotic.
David Copperfield: Oh, no. I do it myself, all the time.

David Copperfield: I’m in love.
Agnes: Really?
David Copperfield: Utterly. With Dora Spenlow. I don’t know why I said it like that, but…
Agnes: Ah. The girl with the yapping dog.
David Copperfield: What a face.
Agnes: What a voice that comes out of it.
David Copperfield: Do you mock me?
Agnes: I do. I do. With affection, but entirely without mercy.

David Copperfield: [voice over] I returned to London for the first time since I fled the bottling factory in rags. This time I was a gentleman, with money in his pocket. I was a proctor.

David Copperfield: I don’t suppose you know what a proctor is?
Mrs. Crupp: Oh, now you’re asking. Do they make hats?

Mr Spenlow: A proctor is a sort of monkish attorney.
David Copperfield: I see.

David Copperfield: [voice over] I never learned what a proctor was an attorney of, but I soon excelled about the office. And I was conveniently positioned to seek out my first, my one, my only true love.

[referring to his time with Dora]
David Copperfield: [voice over] I treasured those times. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction.

David Copperfield: [voice over] My boyhood days of misery and destitution seemed now like a scarcely believable fiction. Was I wrong to imagine that the hurt and shame of my past could never return?

[to David; referring to Uriah and his mother, who has now become Wickfield’s apprentice]
Agnes: They live with us now. I hear their snores, like lovelorn toads calling across a swamp.

[to a drunk David]
Agnes: And how is Dora?
David Copperfield: Wonderful. Curly. In fact, I propose to intend to marriage her in the morning.
Agnes: Oh, what pleasing news.

Betsey Trotwood: Trotwood, I’m ruined.
Mr. Dick: Like a castle.
Betsey Trotwood: So Mr. Dick suggested we come here.
David Copperfield: Ruined? But how can you be ruined?
Mr. Dick: Like a big castle.
Betsey Trotwood: Because I’ve lost everything, Trot. In the mining way, and the banking way.

Betsey Trotwood: Mr Wickfield cannot fully explain why, but our money is gone. We’ve had to say farewell to lovely Janet, close up the house, and walk away from our beautiful garden. Mr. Dick: Like a paradise for donkeys now.

David Copperfield: Do you understand what ruin means? It means distress, and want, and starvation.
Mr. Dick: Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Uriah Heep: This is your new lodgings. It may be not the most spacious of properties, but it would suit someone in your circumstances very well indeed.
Betsey Trotwood: I am not someone in my circumstances.

Uriah Heep: Can’t fly your kite in here.
Mr. Dick: Well, you can’t fly a kite in a house anyway. There’s no breeze. See?
Uriah Heep: No, I bow to your expertise.
David Copperfield: Can’t fly his kite, but he could swat an irritant.

Steerforth: Promise me, Daisy, won’t you, that you’ll think of me at my best? Promise me that much.
David Copperfield: Yes. You seem low. Where’s this sudden cloud come from?

Peggotty: You had nothing. Then you had something. Now you’ve got nothing again. So stands to right you’ll have something again.
David Copperfield: I wish I could be so sure it worked like that.

[David visits Steerforth’s mother after Steerforth elopes with Emily]
David Copperfield: All I’ve chosen to ignore in your son of snobbery, and an unyielding, wilful spirit I see in you, madam.
Mrs. Steerforth: I beg your pardon? Do you see this?
David Copperfield: It’s tea.
Mrs. Steerforth: And this, and this, and this. Tea. Every Wednesday, James joins me here for tea, and this tea shall not be removed from the table until he returns. That shall be his welcome.
David Copperfield: Well, I’m sure he’ll find it cold and stale. Door.
Mrs. Steerforth: And as for her, if there were any word of comfort that would be of solace to her in her dying hour, I wouldn’t part with it for life itself.

[as David is about to propose to Dora]
David Copperfield: I need to tell you, I have no money.
Dora Spenlow: I don’t fully understand.
David Copperfield: I’m poor.
Dora Spenlow: Well, no matter. But, Jip must have a mutton chop every day at twelve, or he will die.
David Copperfield: Precisely. So how, my love, should we get the meat?
[Dora kisses David]
Dora Spenlow: So my answer is yes. I will marry you, Doady.

[after David and Dora are engaged]
Mr. Dick: That is wonderful. You will have a happy lifetime.
David Copperfield: Lifetime?
Mr. Dick: Sixty years at least.

Dora Spenlow: I preferred, I think, the larger apartment.
Betsey Trotwood: We were sadly not able to express a preference.
Dora Spenlow: I’m sure it’s only small because Doady is saving for a castle.
Betsey Trotwood: Is he really, do you think?

Dora Spenlow: Will the lady be in soon with some tea?
Betsey Trotwood: I will fetch some tea. The lady does not exist.
Dora Spenlow: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Will she ever?

Betsey Trotwood: Dora, when I was your age, I made an unsuitable marriage, with a man. I’ve bitterly regretted it ever since. We were simply very young and incompatible.
Dora Spenlow: Oh. I’m so sorry you found the wrong man. It makes me doubly happy that I found the right one.
Betsey Trotwood: Bless me, you’re very young.

Mr. Dick: [to David] What an adventure we have had. You know, you should write about all of this.

Peggotty: You need to love those that help you out, and help out the ones you love. That’s a Peggotty proverb.

[as David begins to write his book]
David Copperfield: [voice over] Mr Micawber, a rake-thin, middle-aged person, carried a jaunty sort of stick. His methods for avoiding creditors were as inventive as they were elaborate.

David Copperfield: [voice over] My Aunt Betsey was a tall, hard-featured lady, with quick bright eyes, and the most kind and forgiving spirit.

Mr. Dick: My mind is as clear as a soap bubble!

David Copperfield: [voice over] Peggotty had cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds did not peck her instead of the apples.

Mr. Wickfield: You forged my signature! You’re the source of this calamity, Heep. A thousand curses upon you. I take it back. A thousand and four!
Uriah Heep: Agnes, if you have any love for your babbling father, you’ll leave this gang and marry me. I will ruin him otherwise.
Agnes: Never.

Betsey Trotwood: Do you know what I want?
Uriah Heep: What? A straitjacket?! A husband?!
Betsey Trotwood: I want my home!
Uriah Heep: Well, I ain’t got it.

Uriah Heep: And you, Mrs. T, you’re a grim old prospect. No wonder your old man knocked you about.
[Betsey punches him, Uriah punches her, Betsey punches back, as Uriah goes to punch her, David punches him]
Peggotty: Now stove his head in with a cake.
Mr. Wickfield: And in case that wasn’t clear enough, you’re dismissed with immediate effect.

Dora Spenlow: I fear I don’t properly fit.
David Copperfield: I want you to be in all my stories.
Dora Spenlow: No, I don’t belong. Write me out of it.

[as he finishes narrating his life story to the audience]
David Copperfield: And now I have nothing left to tell. Unless, indeed, I were to confess that this narrative is far more than mere fiction. It is, in fact, written memory, wherein loss, and love, live forever side by side. Its people are as real as earth. And my truest hope is that I might grow half as strong and wise in the telling of their story as they have grown in the living of it.

David Copperfield: Agnes, sometimes in my writing I can say things.
Agnes: I will love you all my life.
[after which we see David and Agnes married with their children]

[referring to Betsey’s house]
David Copperfield: Odd to think my words bought this house.
Mr. Wickfield: Fine depiction of that villain Heep, eh? I think we both played a very clever game, you and I, catching that fellow.
David Copperfield: Well done, us.

[last lines; talking to his younger self]
David Copperfield: Don’t worry. You’ll make it through. And you’ll have quite the ride on the way.

What do you think of our list of quotes? Let us know what you think in the comments below as we’d love to know.

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2 Comments

Denise on September 8, 2020 at 1:25 am

I’d love to see the quote at the end of the movie that was something like; “My desire is that I tell my story as well as I lived it”
Kay Blue on July 22, 2020 at 9:33 am

I would love to know the quote about personal relationship with alcohol towards the end of the movie. We loved the movie, the way it was filmed the clothes the accents. We found it refreshing and effervercent.

The Personal History of David Copperfield Best Quotes

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