To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Preface (1961)

The last line was originally in her autobiography This Is My Story (1937).