Quotes from Good Wives

“Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“...Meg learned to love her husband better for his poverty, because it seem to have made a man of him, giving him the strength and courage to fight his own way, and taught him a tender patience with which to bear and comfort the natural longings and failures of those he loved.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“. . . children should draw [a husband & wife] nearer than ever, not separate you, as if they were all yours, and [your husband] had nothing to do but support them. . . . don't neglect husaband for children, don't shut him out of the nursery, but teach him how to help in it. His place is there as well as yours, and the children need him; let him feel that he has his part to do, and he will do it gladly and faithfully, and it will be better for you all. . . . That is the secret of our home happiness: he does not let business wean him from the little cares and duties that affect us all, and I try not to let domestic worries destroy my interest in his pursuits. Each do our part alone in many things, but at home we work together, always. . . . no time is so beautiful and precious to parents as the first years of the little lives given them to train. Don't let [your husband] be a stranger to the babies, for they will do more to keep him safe and happy in this world of trial and temptation than anything else, and through them you will learn to know and love one another as you should.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“MY BETH.

Sitting patient in the shadow
Till the blessed light shall come,
A serene and saintly presence
Sanctifies our troubled home.
Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows
Break like ripples on the strand
Of the deep and solemn river
Where her willing feet now stand.

O my sister, passing from me,
Out of human care and strife,
Leave me, as a gift, those virtues
Which have beautified your life.
Dear, bequeath me that great patience
Which has power to sustain
A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit
In its prison-house of pain.

Give me, for I need it sorely,
Of that courage, wise and sweet,
Which has made the path of duty
Green beneath your willing feet.
Give me that unselfish nature,
That with charity divine
Can pardon wrong for love's dear sake—
Meek heart, forgive me mine!

Thus our parting daily loseth
Something of its bitter pain,
And while learning this hard lesson,
My great loss becomes my gain.
For the touch of grief will render
My wild nature more serene,
Give to life new aspirations,
A new trust in the unseen.

Henceforth, safe across the river,
I shall see for evermore
A beloved, household spirit
Waiting for me on the shore.
Hope and faith, born of my sorrow,
Guardian angels shall become,
And the sister gone before me
By their hands shall lead me home.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“Is that my boy?’
As sure as this is my girl!”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“...unlocking the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“When Laurie said 'Good-by', he whispered significantly, "It won't do a bit of good, Jo. My eye is on you; so mind what you do, or I'll come and bring you home.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“...these hearts of ours are curious and contrary things, and time and nature work their will in spite of us.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“...she discovered that her feet were cold, her head ached, and that her heart was colder than the former, fuller of pain than the latter.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“You can go through the world with your elbows out and your nose in the air, and call it independence, if you like. That's not my way.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“Very likely some Mrs Grundy will observe, "I don't believe it, boys will be boys, young men must sow their wild oats, and women must not expect miracles." I dare say you don't, Mrs. Grundy, but it's true nevertheless. Women work a good many miracles, and I have a persuasion that they may perform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in a hurry to give it up for any mortal man.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“La risata è pronta quando il cuore è felice.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“E' dalle piccolezze che si vede il carattere delle persone.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

“By-and-by Jo roamed away upstairs, for it was rainy, and she could not walk. A restless spirit possessed her, and the old feeling came again, not bitter as it once was, but a sorrowfully patient wonder why one sister should have all she asked, the other nothing. It was not true, she knew that and tried to put it away, but the natural craving for affection was strong, and Amy's happiness woke the hungry longing for someone to 'love with heart and soul, and cling to while God let them be together.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Good Wives

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Popular quotes

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from Cannery Row

“And then we jerked to a stop. Jared was blocking the exit. "Have you lost your mind, Ian?" he asked, shocked and outraged. "What are you doing to her?"
"Did you know about this?" Ian shouted back, shoving me toward Jared and shaking me at him.
"You're going to hurt her!"
"Do you know what she's planning?" Ian roared.
Jared stared at Ian, his face suddenly closed off. He didn't answer. That was answer enough for Ian.
Ian's fist struck Jared so fast that I missed the blow - I just felt the lurch in his body and saw Jared reel back into the dark hall.
"Ian, stop," I begged.
"You stop," he growled back at me.
He yanked me through the arch into the tunnel, then pulled me north. I had to almost run to keep up with his longer stride.
"O´Shea!" Jared shouted after us.
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There was nothing but silence and blackness behind us now. I stumbled in the dark, trying to keep up.
He jerked me along faster, and my breath caught in a moan, almost like a cry of pain.
The sound made Ian stumble to a stop. His breathing was hoarse in the darkness.
"Ian, Ian, I..." I chocked, unable to finish. I didn't know what to say, picturing his furious face.
His arms caught me abruptly, yanking my feet out from under me and then catching my shoulders before I could fall. He started running forward again, carrying me now. His hands were not rough and angry like before; he cradled me against his chest.”
― Stephenie Meyer, quote from The Host

“The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.”
― Wilkie Collins, quote from The Woman in White

“So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Just Listen

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― Daniel Quinn, quote from Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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