“It was mortifying to find how strong the habit of idle speech may become in one’s self. One need not always be saying something in this noisy world.”

“There are plenty of people dragging themselves miserably through the world, because they are clogged and fettered with work for which they have no fitness... I can't help believing that nothing is better than to find one's work early and hold fast to it, and put all one's heart into it.”

“Find your quiet center of life and write from that to the world.”

“Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of. ”

“This is a very small world; we are all within hail of each other. I dare say when we get to Heaven there will not be a stranger to make friends with.”

“I saw William Blackett’s escaping sail already far from land, and Captain Littlepage was sitting behind his closed window as I passed by, watching for some one who never came. I tried to speak to him, but he did not see me. There was a patient look on the old man’s face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with whom to speak his own language or find companionship.”

“Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest's pleasure,--that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and whatever belongs to them, so that they make a part of one's own life that can never be forgotten.”