Quotes from Maud Hart Lovelace

You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.

Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?

Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.

Betsy liked to talk. Her father always said she got it from her mother, and her mother always said she got it from her father. But whomever she got it from she was certainly a talker.

It looks like something out of Whittier's Snowbound,' Julia said. Julia could always think of things like that to say.

You don't grow up, she reasoned now, until you begin to evaluate yourself, to recognize your good traits and acknowledge that you have a few faults.

We'll just have to find more flowers in the spring. That's when they bloom, tra la.

We have to build our lives out of what materials we have. It's as though we were given a heap of blocks and told to build a house.

We're growing up, Betsy said aloud. She wasn't even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except to try and see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be. I'd like to be a fine one, Betsy thought quickly and urgently.

Betsy liked to read her stories aloud and she read them like an actress. She made her voice low and thrillingly deep. She made it shake with emotion. She laughed mockingly and sobbed wildly when the occasion required.

Betsy did not answer. She was a talker, her family always said, but sometimes when she most wanted to talk she couldn't say a word.

This was Betsy and Tacy's private corner. Betsy's mother was a great believer in people having private corners, and the piano box was plainly meant to belong to Betsy and Tacy, for it fitted them so snugly.

Julia was as happy as Betsy was, almost. One nice thing about Julia was that she rejoiced in other people's luck.

That's the way you have to be with boys, said Betsy. Beam about their old football when you're dying to know whether they're going to take you to a party.

Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.

the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.

After Commencement Day, the world! Joe said. With Betsy.

Carney was hatless and gloveless, wearing her pink linen. Sam looked at her more than once. "its just because he likes pink," she told herself.

This going around with boys makes me sick, said Tacy. I like Herbert Humphreys, said Tib. It was just like Tib to like a boy and say so. Oh, if you have to have a boy around, it might as well be Herbert, said Betsy, who liked him too. He wears cute clothes, said Tacy, blushing. Herbert Humphreys, who had come to Deep Valley from St. Paul, wore knickerbockers. The other boys in their grade wore plain short pants.

Thoughts are such fleet magic things. Betsy's thoughts swept a wide arc while Uncle Keith read her poem aloud. She thought of Julia learning to sing with Mrs. Poppy. She thought of Tib learning to dance. She thought of herself and Tacy and Tib going into their 'teens. She even thought of Tom and Herbert and of how, by and by, they would be carrying her books and Tacy's and Tib's up the hill from high school.

the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say - Mr. Ray, Heaven to Betsy

And then we'll go to Tiffany's and get you a ring. And then-- he turned swiftly to look into her fade-- when can we get married?

Sometimes the west showed clouds like tiny pink feathers; sometimes it showed purple mountains and green lakes; sometimes the clouds were scarlet with gold around the edges. Betsy

Sam!" cried Carney. "I'm afraid I lost the flashlight, but…" That was all she said for Sam took her in his arms. Holding her tightly he kissed her muddy face, not once but several times.