From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.

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 had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it

No. I don't want to need anybody. I want someone to need me ... I want someone to need me.

People always think that happiness is a faraway thing … something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up.

Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn't happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?

Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?