Quotes from Louisa May Alcott

To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman

I want to be great, or nothing.

can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy.

There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind

I rather miss my wild girl; but if I get a strong, helpful, tender-hearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied.

Not being a genius, like Keats, it won't kill me," she said stoutly, "and I've got the joke on my side, after all, for the parts that were taken straight out of real life are denounced as impossible and absurd, and the scenes that I made up out of my own silly head are pronounced 'charmingly natural, tender, and true.' So I'll comfort myself with that, and when I'm ready, I'll up again and take another.

I was wondering how you and Amy get on together.

and Meg opened her arms to her sisters, who clung about her with April faces for a minute, feeling that the new love had not changed the old.

My lady, as her friends called her, sincerely desired to be a genuine lady, and was so at heart, but had yet to learn that money cannot buy refinement of nature, that rank does not always confer nobility, and that true breeding makes itself felt in spite of external drawbacks.

If I was a boy, we'd run away together, and have a capital time; but as I'm a miserable girl, I must be proper, and stop at home. Don't tempt me, Teddy, it's a crazy plan.

You have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You're ready to go out and – and find a good use for your talent.

What would Jo say if she saw you now? asked Amy impatiently

When the sun peeped into the girl's room early next morning, to promise them a fine day, he saw a comical sight... This funny spectacle appeared to amuse the sun, for he burst out with such radiance that Jo woke up, and roused all her sisters by a hearty laugh at Amy's ornament.

Let's hear the sound of the baby pianny.

That's loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it, said Meg, as they set out their presents while their mother was upstairs collecting clothes for the poor Hummels.

She did not answer, for truth she could not, and falsehood she would not, give him.

And holding the little paper fast, as if it were a promise yet to be fulfilled, Jo laid her head down on a comfortable rag bag, and cried, as if in opposition to the rain pattering on the roof.

The people who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small neatness from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table was eloquent of home love and tender forethought.

I'd rather give her new ones, for I think she is a little bit proud and might not like old things. If she was my sister it would do, because sisters don't mind, but she isn't, and that makes it bad, you see. I know how I can manage beautifully; I'll adopt her! and Rose looked quite radiant with

A kiss for a blow is always best, though it's not very easy to give it sometimes," said her mother, with the air of one who had learned the difference between preaching and practicing.

Jo's angles are much softened, she has learned to carry herself with ease, if not grace.

As she said, she was 'fond of luxury', and her chief trouble was poverty.

A year seems very long to wait before I see them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these hard days need not be wasted.

He was not ashamed of it, but put it away as one of the bitter-sweet experiences of his life, for which he could be grateful when the pain was over.