"If we giv up our minds tew little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could ketch more flies with one swoop ov his hand than enny boddy else could, and he want good at ennything else."

"It iz a darned sight eazier tew find six men who kan tell exactly how a thing ought tew be did than tew find one who will do it."

"I don't kno az i want tew bet enny money, and giv odds, on the man, who iz alwus anxious tew pray out loud, every chance he kan git."

"I don't beleaf in bad luck being sot for a man, like a trap, but i hav known lots ov folks, who if thare waz enny fust rate bad luck lieing around loose, would be sure tew git one foot in it enny how."

"I don't beleave in fighting; i am solemly aginst it; but if a man gits teu fighting, i am also solemly aginst hiz gitting licked. After a fight iz once opened, all the virtew thare iz in it iz tew lick the other party."

"Dangers are sum like a kold bath, very dangerous while you stand stripped on the bank, but often not only harmless, but invigorating, if you pitch into them."

""Familiarity breeds kontempt." This only applies tew men, not tew hot bukwheat slapkakes, well buttered and sugared."

"When a man gits tew talking about himself, he seldum fails tew be eloquent, and often reaches the sublime."

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust"

"Poverty is the stepmother of genius."

"I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words."

"Nature never makes blunders; when she makes a fool she means it."

"Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend."

"Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it."

"Love is like the measles; we can't have it bad but once, and the later in life we have it the tougher it goes with us."

"A secret ceases to be a secret if it is once confided—it is like a dollar bill, once broken, it is never a dollar again."

"As in a game ov cards, so in the game ov life, we must play what is dealt tew us, and the glory consists, not so mutch in winning, as in playing a poor hand well."

"Most people when they cum tew yu for advice cum tew hav their own opinyuns strengthened, not correkted."

"Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug."

"Tew bring up a child in the wa he should go—travel that wa yourself."

"It iz comparitively eazy tew repent ov the sins that we hav committed, but tew repent ov thoze which we intend to commit, is asking tew mutch ov enny man, now days."

"The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sumtime lay down in this world together for a fu minnits, but when the lion kums tew git up, the lamb will be missing."

"I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain't so."

"The wheel that squeaks the loudest Is the one that gets the grease."

"Nothing is more destructive of the spirit and ultimately of creativity than false meekness, anger that does not know its own name. And nothing is more freeing for a woman (or for a woman writer) than giving up the pleasures of masochism and beginning to fight. But we must always remember that fighting is only a first step. As Virginia Woolf points out in A Room of One's Own, many women's books have been destroyed by the rage and bitterness at their own centers. Rage opens the doors into the spirit, but then the spirit must be nurtureed."

"when I go to read my work at colleges, I find the students reading and discussing contemporary writing by women as if there never had been a time when a Distinguished Critic could say "Women can't be writers"-even in jest. I am grateful and glad for that change, but it has not been won without pain."

"Sexism is somewhat better hidden now-though it is far from eradicated."

"school is a microcosm of our society's values."

"For women writers the systematic discouragement even to attempt to become writers has been so constant and pervasive a force that we cannot consider their literary productions without somehow assessing the effects of that barrage of discouragement. Often discouraged in the home, often at school, often by families and spouses, the rare woman writer who does not lose her determination along the way is already a survivor. That one should next have to face the systematic discouragement of a male-oriented literary establishment is absurd and sad but nonetheless a real fact of life for many women writers.* (No one has chronicled this repression better than Tillie Olsen in her splendid book Silences (1978).) The truth is that many of us are doomed to do our best work in an atmosphere of condescension and loneliness. Yet perhaps there is some sense in which that lack of establishment approval is a blessing, for an artist must learn (the sooner the better) that he or she works for the work itself, not for approval, and it is easier to establish that sense of creative independence when approval is lacking than when one is seduced by it."

"For women writers the systematic discouragement even to attempt to become writers has been so constant and pervasive a force that we cannot consider their literary productions without somehow assessing the effects of that barrage of discouragement."

"...if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

"Because I loved myself, I was loved."

"Hate generalizes; love is particular."

"Since flesh can't stay, we pass the words along."

"Birth is the start of loneliness and loneliness the start of poetry..."

"The best slave does not need to be beaten. She beats herself."

"...I am sure that when we love we are better than ourselves and when we hate, worse."

"I am not sure if love is a salve or just a deeper kind of wound."

"Why does life need evidence of life?"

"In loving life you love what can't survive..."

"I look forward and see myself look back."

"It is our old love I love."

"Betrayal does that -- betrays the betrayer."

"Driving me away is easier than saying goodbye..."

"Pain is not love. Love flowers; love gives without taking; love is serene and calm."

"Jealousy is all the fun you think they had."

"I only know that in our choice of friends and lovers and teachers who will change our lives, we are guided by forces which have nothing to do with the rationalizations we give."

"What was the point of spending your life with someone you were always looking for ways to deceive?"

"The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past."

"...the ocean kept falling into itself, gathering itself up, and falling into itself again."