Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

To know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom.

And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities.

Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.

... even in houses commonly held to be 'booky' one finds, nine times out of ten, not a library but a book-dump.

If I could have made the change sooner I daresay I should never have given a thought to the literary delights of Paris or London; for life in the country is the only state which has always completely satisfied me, and I had never been allowed to gratify it, even for a few weeks at a time. Now I was to know the joys of six or seven months a year among fields and woods of my own, and the childish ecstasy of that first spring outing at Mamaroneck swept away all restlessness in the deep joy of communion with the earth.

An education is like a crumbling building that needs constant upkeep with repairs and additions.