When Greta Gerwig’s Little Women was released in 2019, it introduced a classic tale to a whole new generation of girls and women. Though the story takes place in the 1800s, around the Civil War, the lives of these four sisters is relatable even to people born in the 2000s, because as it turns out, many of the themes of life remain the same over time: love, loss, ambition, and growing up don’t have a timeframe. They have always existed and they always will.

Little Women allows viewers to grow up with their characters, to indulge in the lightness of girlhood and to feel the heaviness of change that comes with adulthood. Here are the 10 best quotes from Little Women that highlight what it means—and what it has always meant—to be a girl and a woman:

1.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it. But I’m so lonely.

2.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): I don’t believe I will ever marry. I’m happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up.

Theodore ‘Laurie’ Laurence (Timothee Chalamet): You will care for somebody, and you’ll love him tremendously, and live and die for him. I know your will, it’s your way, and you will and I’ll watch.

3.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe.

4.

Amy March (Florence Pugh): I believe we have some power over who we love. It isn’t something that just happens to a person.

Theodore ‘Laurie’ Laurence (Timothee Chalamet): I think the poets might disagree.

Amy: Well, I’m not a poet. I’m just a woman. And as a woman, there’s no way for me to make my own money. Not enough to earn a living or support my family. And if I had my own money, which I don’t, that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married. And if we had children, they would be his, not mine. They would be his property. So don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition because it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me.

5.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): Perhaps I was too quick in turning him down. Laurie.

Marmee March (Laura Dern): Do you love him?

Jo: If he asked me again, I think I would say yes. Do you think he’ll ask me again?

Marmee: But do yo love him?

Jo: I cared more to be loved. I want to be loved.

Marmee: That’s not the same thing as loving.

6.

Amy March (Florence Pugh): I have been second to Jo my whole life in everything and I will not be the person you settle for just because you cannot have her. I won’t do it, not when I’ve spent my entire life loving you.

7.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): You will be bored of him in two years and we will be interesting forever.

Meg March (Emma Watson): Just because my dreams are different than yours doesn’t mean they’re unimportant. 

8.

Beth March (Eliza Scanlen): It’s like the tide going out. It goes out slowly, but it can’t be stopped.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): I’ll stop it. I’ve stopped it before.

9.

Amy March (Florence Pugh): I’m making a mold of my foot for Laurie to remind him I have nice feet.

10.

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan): I can’t believe childhood is over.

Meg March (Emma Watson): It was going to end one way or another. And what a happy end.