“Old maids like the houseless and unemployed poor, should not ask for a place and an occupation in the world: the demand disturbs the happy and the rich.”

“They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?”

“It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich.”

“It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.”

“Right Jo better be happy old maids than unhappy wives or unmaidenly girls running about to find husbands.”

“The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor—they never overlap, do they?See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?Losing weight and looking like the poor.”

“And yet I adore him. I think he's quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy, and philosophically irresponsible – and there is absolutely nobody like him.”

“A maid I lived and a maid I died; I never was asked and never denied.”

“God gives talent so that the ordinary person can become extraordinary. Talent is the only way the poor can become rich. Otherwise, in this world the rich would remain rich and the poor would remain poor. This unfair talent actually creates a balance, helps to make the world fair.”

“I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.”