I covet honour in the same way as a miser covets gold.

Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.

I have shed pewter tears! It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the wars and lose arms and legs! It would at least be a change. I cannot bear it longer! Now, I know what it is to have a visit from one's old thoughts, with what they may bring with them! I have had a visit from mine, and you may be sure it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at last about to jump down from the drawers.

She thought, "He whom I love more than my father or mother, he of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness. I dare do anything to win him and to gain an immortal soul.

Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!

We haven't yet got eyes that can gaze into all the splendour that God has created, but we shall get them one day; and that will be the finest fairy tale of all, for we shall be in it ourselves.

I never dreamed of so much happiness when I was the Ugly Duckling!