“life and love are very precious when both are in full bloom.”
Author detail
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth, and May, were educated by their father, philosopher and teacher Bronson Alcott, and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May. Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, and theatricals in the barn at "Hillside". Like her character, "Jo March" in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy. "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, "and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences ..." For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays --"the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens." At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write -- anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"
Quotes
Showing 21-40 of 72
“life and love are very precious when both are in full bloom.”
“Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will bring few regrets, and lif...”
“Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.”
“Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us - and those around us - more effectively. Look for the learning.”
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“Girls are so queer you never know what they mean. They say no when they mean yes, and drive a man out of his wits just for the fun of it. --Laurie”
“I ask not for any crown But that which all may win; Nor try to conquer any world Except the one within.”
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“Conceit spoils the finest genius.”
“...and Jo laid the rustling sheets together with a careful hand, as one might shut the covers of a lovely romance, which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he finds himself alone...”
“John Brooke is acting dreadfully, and Meg likes it!”
“…wisely mingled poetry and prose.”
“I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.”
“But, like all happiness, it did not last long…”
“Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants…”
“Dear me! how happy and good we'd be, if we had no worries!”
“It's lovely to see people so happy.”
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“…feeling as if all the happiness and support of their lives was about to be taken from them.”
“I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.”
“Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and fall into a vortex, as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for til...”
“I want to do something splendid… Something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead… I think I shall write books.”
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“I sell my children, and though they feed me, they don't love me as hers do.”
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