He hesitated for a moment. Then he said softly, "I love you, Mother." He took my hand and kissed it, and folded my fingers round the stem of the rose. He had stripped it of its thorns.

No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.

Humor is an excellent method of keeping a tight rein on unproductive displays of emotion.

I had refused Emerson's well-meant offers of assistance, knowing his efforts would be confined to moving the furniture to the wrong places and demanding how much longer the process would take.

If you take a man by surprise, and behave with sufficient arrogance, he will generally do what you ask. -Emerson

I don't think she realized how much she cared for him, or he for her, until the end. Hasn't someone said a woman may be known by the men who love her enough to die for her? (If they haven't, I claim the credit myself.)

I would not be at all surprised to find that it was for gold that Cain committed the first murder. (It happened a very long time ago, and Holy Writ, though no doubt divinely inspired, is a trifle careless about details. God is not a historian).