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

People always think that happiness is a faraway thing," thought Francie, "something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone - just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.

It doesn't take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.

Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.

And that's where the whole trouble is. We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand our own selves.

If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can't see how beautiful it really is.

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 to just be... safe. At least she knows she's living.