“And always, there was the magic of learning things.”

“The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed." "That is what is called learning the truth.”

“People always think that happiness is a faraway thing … something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up.”

“Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.”

“They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.”

“It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.”

“Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.”