- [at the post-natal clinic just before Christmas, Chummy is weighing a mother's baby]
- Chummy Noakes: Over eighteen pounds. Bravo! About the same size as a turkey.
- [Sister Evangelina is trying to break the ice with a difficult patient who hit her when she tried take a blood sample]
- Sister Evangelina: [writing in her notebook] "Patient demonstrated strong right hook". Right, you awkward old biddy. See what you make of this...
- [Sister Evangelina farts loudly]
- Sister Evangelina: And if that doesn't impress you, I can do it again in a different key.
- [Sister Evangelina farts again, this time producing a lower note]
- Sister Evangelina: Catch it, Nurse Lee. It's heading for the door.
- Mrs. Jenkins: Cat's got it now. It's underneath the chair.
- Sister Evangelina: "Where'er you be, Let your wind go free".
- Mrs. Jenkins: "In church and chapel, Let it rattle".
- Sister Evangelina: Good thing there's no naked flames about.
- [they both chuckle]
- Sister Julienne: [about abandoned baby] I've come to the conclusion there are only two reasons for ever doing anything one is love and the other is fear. It would appear that both were at work in this case.
- Sister Monica Joan: The past remains the past. The present unamended.
- Sister Evangelina: Sister Monica Joan is right. It's what happens in the here and now that counts. Will it matter one day where baby Raymond was found, blue with cold and wrapped in a pillowcase? No, because that will be his past. And his present will be safe and filled with love.
- Chummy Noakes: [about teen girl] Don't you remember what it felt like? Feeling as though you'd never stop growing, like Alice in Wonderland when she ate the cake. Dreading being noticed and fearing you aren't visible at all.
- Trixie Franklin: Can't say I do.
- Sister Julienne: [arriving on scene to deliver a baby] Please, will everybody stand right back so we can assist Mrs Levons? It might help if you were dispersed elsewhere.
- Old Man: Begging your pardon, this is a communal toilet, and I was in the queue!
- Mature Jenny: [narrating] Like all of the things in life that are truly meaningful, Christmas is never about perfection. In Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, accommodation was makeshift. The Wise Men followed somewhat confused directions, and the shepherds gave the nearest gifts that came to hand. That year in Poplar, things were similarly compromised. But hope prevailed, and help came from unexpected sources.
- [Hilda arrives]
- [last lines]
- Mature Jenny: [narrating] In later life, I came to see that faith, like hope, is a rope and anchor in a shifting world. Faith cannot be questioned, only lived. And if I could not grasp it then, I felt its heartbeat, which was love.
- Mature Jenny: My first Christmas in Poplar was unlike any other I had known. The streets, like all streets, were strung with colored lights, and children drew up lists, like children everywhere. As the days ticked down, it seemed as though the district was fizzing with delight. But at Nonnatus House, a different magic was at work. The Sisters spent Advent in prayer and meditation, and the atmosphere was not one of excitement but of expectant, joyous calm. I wasn't entirely sure what I should make of it. I was young, and faith was still a mystery to me.