You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernel, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart some day, and then the rough burr will fall off.

Now and then genius carries all before it, but not often. We have to climb slowly, with many slips and falls.

It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.

And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning.

Love and Loyalty If ever men and women are their simplest, sincerest selves, it is when suffering softens the one, and sympathy strengthens the other.

Right Jo better be happy old maids than unhappy wives or unmaidenly girls running about to find husbands.

…I can't help seeing that you are very lonely, and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to my heart.