- Laurie: I have loved you since the moment I clapped eyes on you. What could be more reasonable than to marry you?
- Jo March: We'd kill each other.
- Laurie: Nonsense!
- Jo March: Neither of us can keep our temper-...
- Laurie: I can, unless provoked.
- Jo March: We're both stupidly stubborn, especially you. We'd only quarrel!
- Laurie: I wouldn't!
- Jo March: You can't even propose without quarreling.
- Beth: If God wants me with Him, there is none who will stop Him. I don't mind. I was never like the rest of you... making plans about the great things I'd do. I never saw myself as anything much. Not a great writer like you.
- Jo: Beth, I'm not a great writer.
- Beth: But you will be. Oh, Jo, I've missed you so. Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home. But I don't like being left behind. Now I am the one going ahead. I am not afraid. I can be brave like you.
- Jo March: I find it poor logic to say that because women are good, women should vote. Men do not vote because they are good; they vote because they are male, and women should vote, not because we are angels and men are animals, but because we are human beings and citizens of this country.
- Mr. Mayer: You should have been a lawyer, Miss March.
- Jo March: I should have been a great many things, Mr. Mayer.
- Marmee: Feminine weaknesses and fainting spells are the direct result of our confining young girls to the house, bent over their needlework, and restrictive corsets.
- Jo March: Well, of course Aunt March prefers Amy over me. Why shouldn't she? I'm ugly and awkward and I always say the wrong things. I fly around throwing away perfectly good marriage proposals. I love our home, but I'm just so fitful and I can't stand being here! I'm sorry, I'm sorry Marmee. There's just something really wrong with me. I want to change, but I - I can't. And I just know I'll never fit in anywhere.
- Marmee March: Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You're ready to go out and - and find a good use for your talent. Tho' I don't know what I shall do without my Jo. Go, and embrace your liberty. And see what wonderful things come of it.
- Laurie: Someday you'll find a man, a good man, and you'll love him, and marry him, and live and die for him. And I'll be hanged if I stand by and watch.
- Friedrich: Your heart understood mine. In the depth of the fragrant night, I listened with ravished soul to your beloved voice. Your heart understood mine.
- Jo: [as Jo and Laurie dance awkwardly at Belle Gardner's ball] I'm sorry! Meg always makes me take the gentleman's part at home! It's a shame you don't know the lady's part!
- Jo: My book! Someone's publishing my book! Hannah! Hannah, someone's publishing my book!
- Hannah: Heaven help us!
- Jo: But it came without a letter, how did it arrive?
- Hannah: Foreign gentleman brought it. Odd name, Fox or Bear.
- Jo: Bhaer! Did you ask him to wait?
- Hannah: I thought he was one of Miss Amy's European friends come with a wedding gift. I told him Miss March and Mr Laurie were living next door.
- Jo: Oh Hannah! You didn't!
- Jo March: [uncovers John's eyes] Surprise!
- Marmee: John. You have a daughter.
- Hannah: And a son.
- [Marmee and Hannah hands the twins to John]
- Meg: Oh, Marmee, I can't believe you did this four times.
- John Brooke: Yes, but never two at once, my darling.
- Amy: Do you hear from Jo? She has befriended a German professor.
- Laurie: Yes, well, no doubt he's showing her the ways of the world.
- Amy: I do not wish to be courted by someone who is still in love with my sister!
- Laurie: I'm not in love with Jo.
- Amy: Then how do you explain your jealousy?
- Laurie: I envy her happiness. I envy his happiness. I envy John Brooke for marrying Meg. I hate Fred Vaughn. And if Beth had a lover I would despise him too. Just as you have always known that you would never marry a pauper, I have always known I should be part of the March family.
- Amy: I do not wish to be loved for my family.
- Laurie: Any more than Fred Vaughn wishes to be loved for his 40,000 a year!
- Laurie: Fellow artists, may I present myself as an actor, a musician, and a loyal and very humble servant of the club.
- Jo March: We'll be the judge of that.
- Laurie: In token of my gratitude and as a means of promoting communication between adjoining nations, shouting from windows being forbidden, I shall provide a post office in our hedge, to further incourage the bearing of our souls and the telling of our most appalling secrets. I do pledge never to reveal what I recieve in confindence here.
- Meg: Well, then. Do take your place Rodrigo.
- Jo March: Sir Rodrigo.
- Josephine 'Jo' March: If lack of attention to personal finances is a mark of refinement, then I say the Marches must be the most elegant family in Concord!
- Friedrich: [having read Jo's latest book] There is *nothing* in this of the woman I am privileged to know.
- Marmee: I fear you would have a long engagement, three or four years. John must secure a house before you can marry and do his service to the union.
- Jo: John? Marry? You mean that poky old Mr Brooke? How did he weasel his way into this family?
- Marmee: Jo! Mr Brooke has been very kind to visit father in the hospital every day.
- Jo: He's dull as powder Meg, can't you at least marry someone amusing?
- Meg: I'm fond of John, he's kind and serious and I'm not afraid of being poor.
- Jo: Marmee, you can't just let her go and marry him.
- Meg: I'd hardly just go and marry anyone.
- Marmee: I would rather Meg marry for love and be a poor man's wife than marry for riches and lose her self-respect.
- Meg: So, you don't mind that John is poor.
- Marmee: No, but I'd rather he have a house.
- Jo: Why must we marry at all? Why can't things just stay as they are?
- Marmee: It's just a proposal, nothing can be decided on. Now girls? Don't spoil the day.
- Younger Amy March: Well, it's not like being stuck with the dreadful nose you get. One does have a choice to whom one loves.
- Friedrich Bhaer: You do not take wine?
- Jo: Only medicinally.
- Friedrich Bhaer: Pretend you've got a cold.
- Jo: Late at night my mind would come alive with voices and stories and friends as dear to me as any in the real world. I gave myself up to it, longing for transformation.
- Jo: Friedrich, this is what I write. My apologies if it fails to live up to your high standards.
- Friedrich Bhaer: Jo, there is more to you than this. If you have the courage to write it.
- Josephine 'Jo' March: Doesn't he have a noble brow? If I were a boy I'd want to look just like that.
- Friedrich Bhaer: I am going to the west. They need teachers and they are not so concerned about the accent.
- Jo March: I don't mind it either.
- Younger Amy March: Do you love Laurie more than you love me?
- Jo: Don't be such a beetle! I could never love anyone as I love my sisters.
- Friedrich Bhaer: You know, when first I saw you I thought "ah, she is a writer".
- Jo: What made you think so?
- [Friedrich indicates her inky fingers]