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?

It takes a lot of doing to die.

A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.

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

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

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.

I want to live for something. I don't want to live to get charity food to give me enough strength to go back to get more charity food.