“I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.”

“I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.”

“Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.”

“Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?""They're beanies.""They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn.""But I'm not in Brooklyn.""But you're still a Brooklynite.""I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie.""You don't mean that, Carl.""Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie.""Why?""When in Rome do as the Romans do.""Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly."This is the silliest conversation...”

“She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. she was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk.She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only - the something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.”

“Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.”

“Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Saturday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books . . . books . . . books. . . .”

“There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it's flashing glory.”

“She sat in the sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life.”

“Her time has come," answered Miss Lizzie. "That's why I didn't marry Harvey - long ago when he asked me. I was afraid of 'that'. So afraid." "I don't know," Miss Lizzie said. "Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than just to be safe." She waited until the next scream died away. "At least she knows she's living.”

“Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, “Goodbye—God bless you.”

“Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie "if we could ride in them free?" "No." "Why?" "Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "and we don't want that over here." "Why?" "Because we got democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.”