Louisa May Alcott

Sourced

• I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
  • As quoted in Lessons from Mom : A Tribute to Loving Wisdom (1996) by Joan Aho Ryan, p. 69

Little Women (1868)

• "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
  "It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
  "I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
  "We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth contentedly from her corner.
  The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never," but each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.
  • Ch. 1, First lines

• If people really want to go, and really try all their lives, I think they will get in; for I don’t believe there are any locks on that door, or any guards at the gate. I always imagine it is as it is in the picture, where the shining ones stretch out their hands to welcome poor Christian as he comes up from the river.

• Housekeeping ain't no joke.

• Love is a great beautifier.

Unsourced

• Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

• Help one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood.

• I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it.

• I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.

• I asked for bread, and I got a stone in the shape of a pedestal.

• I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us.

• I put in my list all the busy, useful independent spinsters I know, for liberty is a better husband than love to many of us.

• Is it not meningitis?
  • last words

• It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.

• Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.

• Many argue; not many converse.

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

• Now we are expected to be as wise as men who have had generations of all the help there is, and we scarcely anything.

• People don't have fortunes left them — nowadays; men have to work, and women to marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world....

• Resolve to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.

• Simple, sincere people seldom speak much of their piety. It shows itself in acts rather than in words, and has more influence than homilies or protestations.

• Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.