It is not that I belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.

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.

You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose.

It is only that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.

The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.

His struggle for a bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school. In time he learned to read, to follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly; and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this day.

The past was only my cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big.