When Jo's conservative sister Meg says she must turn up her hair now that she is a "young lady," Jo shouts, "I'm not! and if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty.... I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman.

Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants.

…that's what old people are here for, — else their experience is of little use.

Rome took all the vanity out of me; for after seeing the wonders there, I felt too insignificant to live, and gave up all my foolish hopes in despair.

Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.

If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes, or how much nearer we are then than now.

I think this power of living in our children is one of the sweetest things in the world.