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.

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

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

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

Intolerance is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror, and heart and soul breaking of the world.

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

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.