Born: November 29, 1832 | Died: March 6, 1888
Nationality: American | Genre: Classic Fiction, Children’s Literature, Coming-of-Age
Louisa May Alcott was an American writer best known for Little Women, the warm, truthful story of the March sisters growing up during hard times. She was raised in a thoughtful but poor family led by her father, Bronson Alcott, and spent her youth around writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. To help support her family, she worked many jobs and later served as a nurse during the Civil War, experiences that sharpened her sense of courage, duty, and kindness. She also wrote lively short thrillers under pen names, showing a bold, practical side.
With Little Women (and its follow-ups Little Men and Jo’s Boys), Alcott gave readers a simple, honest picture of family love, work, and self-respect. Her style is clear and direct, full of small moments that feel true. She believed girls should be free to learn, create, and choose their own paths, and she spoke up for women’s rights and the end of slavery. More than a century later, her stories still feel close to everyday life, and Jo March remains a favorite hero for anyone who wants to grow, change, and stay true to themselves.
I like adventures, and I’m going to find some; I’m tired of being told that girls mustn’t run and climb and laugh out loud, as if joy were a crime, when all I want is to use the strength I have, and see where it will take me, and make something worth the trouble of being alive.
fromLittle WomenbyWe discovered, after a time, that we couldn’t live on love alone; that bread must be earned, and tempers kneaded, and small economies practiced, if two foolish young things were to keep house with any peace; and so we learned to make the trials into lessons, and the lessons into habits, and the habits into a very decent happiness.
fromLittle WomenbyBetter be happy old maids than unhappy wives, and teach your girls to be contented with the home you have, and the friends you keep, and the duties that lie nearest; make this home happy, so that you may be fit for homes of your own, if ever they come, and contented here if they are not.
fromLittle WomenbyBe comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds; and if you wait a little, the wind will shift, and the moon will look out, and you will see that you were walking straight all the while, though you thought you had lost the road.
fromLittle WomenbyWe cannot do much, but we can make our little sacrifices and deny ourselves, and be patient, and keep cheerful, and so perhaps help those who suffer more, and make the waiting shorter for the rest, if we keep our hands busy and our hearts light.
fromLittle WomenbyBe worthy, love, and love will come; for it is not won by clamors, nor bought with gold, but grows like a flower where there is light and warmth, and dies if foolish hands pluck at it in haste, or shut it up in a dark place to be kept.
fromLittle WomenbyI like good strong words that mean something, and I can’t abide the little elegant ones that say nothing at all; I had rather have a single honest sentence, rough and true, than a page of silken phrases that slip through your fingers and leave you empty-handed when you most want help.
fromLittle WomenbyI think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play.
fromLittle WomenbyI don’t like reformers, and I hope you never try to be one; reformers are apt to forget that people can be led by a little kindness oftener than driven by much scolding, and I like the sort of goodness that makes itself beautiful first, and then others wish to copy it.
fromLittle WomenbyI will try and be what he loves to call me—a little woman—and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here, where I am, as well as I can, because I see now that courage isn’t only for soldiers, and battles are fought in kitchens and sickrooms and hearts, where no drum is heard, and no flag is flying.
fromLittle WomenbyThere are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can always bear them if we ask help in the right way, and try to do our duty bravely; for though the burdens are heavy, they grow lighter as we share them, and the road, though rough at first, gets easier to the feet that keep on walking.
fromLittle WomenbyI’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.
fromLittle Womenby