Heaven Knows We Need Never Be

Narrated by Pip in Chapter 19 of Great Expectations (1861), at the moment he leaves his childhood village for London and his new life as a gentleman. Overwhelmed by guilt over his ingratitude toward Joe Gargery, Pip breaks down weeping. The passage is a pivot point at the end of the novel's first stage, and Pip's reflection that he felt "better after I had cried than before — more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle" anticipates the moral education that will occupy the rest of the book.