You won't die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.

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

There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.

In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.

But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.

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?

Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life...And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.