"The girls do care for me, and I for them, and there's a great deal of kindness and sense and talent among them, in spite of what you call fashionable nonsense.

You don't care to make people like you, to go into good society, and cultivate your manners and tastes.

I do, and I mean to make the most of every chance that comes.

You can go through the world with your elbows out and your nose in the air, and call it independence, if you like.

That's not my way." When Amy had whetted her tongue and freed her mind she usually got the best of it, for she seldom failed to have common sense on her side, while Jo carried her love of liberty and hate of conventionalities to such an unlimited extent that she naturally found herself worsted in an argument.