Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us - and those around us - more effectively. Look for the learning.

... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.

For with eyes made clear by many tears, and a heart softened by the tenderest sorrow, she recognized the beauty of her sister's life—uneventful, unambitious, yet full of the genuine virtues which 'smell sweet, and blossom in the dust', the self-forgetfulness that makes the humblest on earth remembered soonest in heaven, the true success which is possible to all.

Now I'm beginning to live a little and feel less like a sick oyster at low tide.

Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will come back buttered.

The girls gave their hearts into their mother's keeping-their souls into their father's; and to both parents, who lived and labored so faithfully for them, they gave a love that grew with their growth, and bound them tenderly together by the sweetest tie which blesses life and outlives death.

…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.