I had never before seen my friends come in beaten, their heads laid open, their noses broken, or seen them jailed for peaceably demonstrating that they wanted work. I had only known how workers lived. Now I was face to face with what our society did to workers who could get no work.

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

When a new idea assaults the power of established authority, authority always screams out that morality has been affronted. It makes no difference if this idea is that the world is round or that women should vote or that the workers should control industry.

We can always find noble reasons for what we want to do.

What if all the forces of society were bent upon developing [poor] children? What if society's business were making people insteadof profits? How much of their creative beauty of spirit would remain unquenched through the years? How much of this responsiveness would follow them through life?

All the laws made for the betterment of workers' lives have their origin with the workers. Hours are shortened,wages go up, conditions are better----only if the workers protest

We all marry strangers. All men are strangers to all women.