the occasional cries of a lost loon, strayed from its flock in northern migration, fill the swamp with sounds of wailing.

Of two evils, I always choose the lesser.

I know men and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a liar; both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any more than that same old leopard can change its spots. After a man tells a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick, fast, and mountain high.

The wages of sin are the hardest debts on earth to pay, and they are always collected at inconvenient times and unexpected places.

Tears were a blessing; they were a relief; they did wash the ache from the heart, ease brain strain, and encourage the soul.

no one in the whole world knows all a man's bignesses and all his littlenesses as his wife does.

Money was their God; work their religion.