It's come at last", she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.

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.

Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

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

I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life--in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful--is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.

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?