Such creatures of accident are we, liable to a thousand deaths before we are born. But once we are here, we may create our own world, if we choose.
Mary Antin[I began to unload] the pyramid of honors, civic and literary, which had been heaped on me by the headlong process of rewarding a popular success. One day, I sat down and wrote a wholesale lot of letters of resignation. When I finished, I didn't belong to a single authors club or patriotic society. I was myself again, whatever that was.
Mary AntinYou heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses.
Mary AntinOne current of continuity runs underneath all the abortive phases of my life. From childhood on I have been obliged to drop anything I was doing to run after any man who seemed to know a little more than I did about God . . . I most want to write about: how a modern woman has sought the face of God-not the name nor the fame but the face [ital] of God-and what adventures came to meet her on this ancient human path.
Mary Antin