“If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is.”

And always, there was the magic of learning things.

…the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only – the something different from anyone else in the two families.

It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life – the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.

The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child’s life.

You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.

Well, there’s a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.

Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.

I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.

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 need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.

Sometimes I think it’s better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be… safe. At least she knows she’s living.

Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life…And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.

Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.

She was surprised at how tiny it seemed now. She supposed the school was just as big as it had ever been only her eyes had grown used to looking at bigger things.

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?

Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.