“a wise woman puts a grain of sugar in everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.”

“it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”

“If he was wood, he was a flail, and I was grain on the threshing floor.I was a thousand grains, my thoughts blown like chaff. All that was left was the taste of salt.”

“You’re not going to throw this away, are you?” she says, and she’ll be talking about the grains of rice in the bottom of the salt shaker. “No, Mrs. Peacock, by all means, you take them. They’ll come in handy when your son gets out of prison and marries your niece.”

“When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha.”

“No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”