“We who live in quiet places have the opportunity to become acquainted with ourselves, to think our own thoughts and live our own lives in a way that is not possible for those keeping up with the crowd.”

Vices are simply overworked virtues.

Remember well, and bear in mind, a constant friend is hard to find.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I’ll remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.

If the members of a home are ill-temperered and quarrelsome, how quickly you feel it when you enter the house. You may not know just what is wrong, but you wish to make your visit short.

We heap up around us things that we do not need as the crow makes piles of glittering pebbles.

Far worst of all, the fever had settled in Mary’s eyes, and Mary was blind.

This earthly life is a battle,’ said Ma. ‘If it isn’t one thing to contend with, it’s another. It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and more thankful for your pleasures.

When Pa was at home the gun always lay across those two wooden hooks above the door. … The gun was always loaded, and always above the door so that Pa could get it quickly and easily, any time he needed a gun.

These happy golden years are passing by, these happy golden years.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

Her blue eyes were still beautiful, but they did not know what was before them, and Mary herself could never look through them again to tell Laura what she was thinking without saying a word.

Many a good beginning makes a bad ending.

The wilderness needs your whole attention.

Wild animals would not stay in a country where there were so many people. Pa did not like to stay, either. He liked a country where the wild animals lived without being afraid.

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Courage and kindness, loyalty, truth, and helpfulness are always the same and always needed.

The most important thing you do everyday you live is deciding not to kill yourself.

The only courage you will need is the courage to live the life you are meant to.

I live in my deepest hell and from there I cannot fall any further.

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

Live like there’s no tomorrow.

The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.

Open your eyes and look within. Are you satisfied with the life you are living?

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.