“Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live. I am coming.”

“Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out arose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patientlyand the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.”

“Why can’t somebody give us a list of things everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of the things that everybody says but nobody thinks?”

“My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.”

“Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books.”

“The Last LeafI saw him once before,As he passed by the door,And againThe pavement stones resound,As he totters o'er the groundWith his cane.They say that in his prime,Ere the pruning-knife of TimeCut him down,Not a better man was foundBy the Crier on his roundThrough the town.But now he walks the streets,And looks at all he meetsSad and wan,And he shakes his feeble head,That it seems as if he said,"They are gone."The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.My grandmamma has saidPoor old lady, she is deadLong agoThat he had a Roman nose,And his cheek was like a roseIn the snow;But now his nose is thin,And it rests upon his chinLike a staff,And a crook is in his back,And a melancholy crackIn his laugh.I know it is a sinFor me to sit and grinAt him here;But the old three-cornered hat,And the breeches, and all that,Are so queer!And if I should live to beThe last leaf upon the treeIn the spring,Let them smile, as I do now,At the old forsaken boughWhere I cling.”

“The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men--from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.”