“Perhaps, if you weren't so busy regarding my shortcomings, you'd find that I do possess redeeming qualities, discreet as they may be.  I notice when the sky is blue.  I smile down at children.  I laugh at any innocent attempt at humor.  I quietly carry the burdens of others as though they were my own.  And I say 'I'm sorry' when you don't.  I am not without fault, but I am not without goodness either.”

“Be sure of your call to every business you go about. Though it is the least business, be sure of your call to it; then, whatever you meet with, you may quiet your heart with this: I know I am where God would have me. Nothing in the world will quiet the heart so much as this: when I meet with any cross, I know I am where God would have me, in my place and calling; I am about the work that God has set me.”

“And a mother without children is not a mother at all, and if I am not a mother, than I am nothing. Nothing. I am like sugar dissolved in a glass of water. Or, I am like salt, which disappears when you cook with it. I am salt. Without my children, I cease to exist.”

“Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you; and I seem not to know my own wishes.”

“Oooh!" Bill squealed. "Very rococo.""So,I'm really doing this? I'm just going to go down there and pretend-""No pretending." Bill shook his head. "Own it. Own that cleavage, girl, you know you want to.""Okay,I am pretending you didn't say that." Luce laughed-winced. "So I go downstairs and 'own it' or whatever. But what do I do when I find my past self? I don't know anything about her.Do I just-""Take her hand," Bill said cryptically. "She'll be very touched by the gesture,I'm sure.”

“I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”