“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied”

“What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.”

“As for Doing-good...I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.”

“Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'.”

“I am a friend. I have in my possession two thousand assorted buttons, eight hundred keys, and only one friend. Perhaps it is not something you can understand. I have not often been one before. I will be now.”

“I am black,” she said, and a shudder rippled through me. “I am foul with a thousand years of demon curses. Don’t cross me or I will bring you and your house down. Rachel is the only clean thing I have, and you won’t sully her to further your high ideas.”