But she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.

Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world

Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.

One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.

New things are always ugly.