So Pa sold the little house. He sold the cow and calf. He made hickory bows and fastened them upright to the wagon box. Ma helped him stretch white canvas over them.

In the long winter evenings he talked to Ma about the Western country. In the West the land was level, and there were no trees. The grass grew thick and high.

The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they're organized for.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at all.

The enormous lake stretched flat and smooth and white all the way to the edge of the gray sky. Wagon tracks went away across it, so far that you could not see where they went; they ended in nothing at all.

Her blue eyes were still beautiful, but they did not know what was before them, and Mary herself could never look through them again to tell Laura what she was thinking without saying a word.

But in the east the sky was pale and through the gray woods came lanterns with wagons and horses, bringing Grandpa and Grandma and aunts and uncles and cousins.

So Pa sold the little house. He sold the cow and calf. He made hickory bows and fastened them upright to the wagon box. Ma helped him stretch white canvas over them.

So they all went away from the little log house. The shutters were over the windows, so the little house could not see them go. It stayed there inside the log fence, behind the two big oak trees that in the summertime had made green roofs for Mary and Laura to play under.

Suffering passes, while love is eternal. That's a gift that you have received from God. Don't waste it.

They drove a long way through the snowy woods, till they came to the town of Pepin. Mary and Laura had seen it once before, but it looked different now.

The path that went by the little house had become a road. Almost every day Laura and Mary stopped their playing and stared in surprise at a wagon slowly creaking by on that road.

Once you begin being naughty, it is easier to go and on and on, and sooner or later something dreadful happens.

A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting.

Mary and Carrie and baby Grace and Ma had all had scarlet fever. The Nelsons across the creek had had it too, so there had been no one to help Pa and Laura.

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Wild animals would not stay in a country where there were so many people. Pa did not like to stay, either. He liked a country where the wild animals lived without being afraid.

Everything from the little house was in the wagon, except the beds and tables and chairs. They did not need to take these, because Pa could always make new ones.

There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no settlers. Only Indians lived there.

Pa did not like a country so old and worn out that the hunting was poor. He wanted to go west. For two years he had wanted to go west and take a homestead, but Ma did not want to leave the settled country.

Far worst of all, the fever had settled in Mary's eyes, and Mary was blind.

Home is the nicest word there is.

There is good in everything, if only we look for it.

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred and we are better throughout the year for having in spirit become a child again at Christmas time.

We heap up around us things that we do not need as the crow makes piles of glittering pebbles.

It is the sweet simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Some old fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.

The world seems a lonesome place when mother has passed away and only memories of her are left.

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas time.

There is good in everything, if only we look for it.?

I'm of those who believe that excesses in all matters are not a good idea, whether it's formation of bubbles, whether it's excess in the financial market, whether it's excess of inequality, it has to be watched, it has to be measured, and it has to be anticipated in terms of consequences.

I get an abundance of e-mail every day, some say 'dear Richard, can you call my husband, he weighs 400 pounds...' or 'my 14-year-old is 200 pounds...' or 'I just got divorced, no one wants me, I am 500 pounds.' So I pick up the phone and I call people.

Whether we're looking at the burial box of St. James, a fragment of the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, or some bones supposedly belonging to John the Baptist, there is always excitement and distrust, faith and doubt.

The most fun I've had on 'Burn Notice,' I think it would have to be working with China Chow and Lucy Lawless.

I think my gap adds character. A while ago, on the street, a guy yelled, 'You could stick a gold through your front teeth!' Which meant I could put a £1 coin between them. But you can't. I've tried! Fifty-pence coins and 2-pence coins, yes. But not a pound.

When I'm happiest writing is just not knowing where it goes and just let the characters bring you there.

There is no standing still because time is moving forward.

So remember when you tell those little white lies that the night has a thousand eyes.

I encourage everyone to pay attention to the issues that matter to you, from jobs and the economy, to education and our schools, to criminal justice reform. Whatever it is that you care about, make sure you use your voice.

Our lives are a sequence of things. When we're alive, they're continuing, just as my words now are an improvisation. So the idea of 30 years is actually quite nebulous. It's impossible to encapsulate it. All you can do is go: 'what next?'

I parade in next to no clothes every day. It's hard not to compare yourself to other people, but I think everyone is different, and that is something we should be celebrating.

When you meet a shallow person, you will see both his body and his soul! When you meet a deep person, you will see only his body! To see his soul, go down to the depths!

Freemasonry is a beautiful system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.

Soon, when all is well, you're going to look back on this period of your life and be so glad that you never gave up.

When X-rays traverse matter of any kind, this matter becomes a source of a radiation similar in character to that of the primary radiation falling upon it.

You are the most beautiful bride there ever be. Dont let anyone else tell you otherwise.

A modern arboretum brings us that ancient forest and, with it, a changed apprehension of time, a renewed appreciation of the elegance of natural form and a renewed sense of wonder at the variety of the world we inhabit.