"Give a beggar a dime and he'll bless you. Give him a dollar and he'll curse you for withholding the rest of your fort…"

"This ancient past that I had despised and rejected with the ruthlessness of youth now had me by the throat. I had nev…"

"...It was a gesture of simple kindness, but it stirred currents in me that had never before been touched. The mountai…"

""...But every step of my writing career was a brutal fight, like the stealing of that oatmeal from hungry children.” …"

"Years ago, in Hollywood, Samuel Goldwyn said to me that to tell a good story, you must know the end before you begin …"

"on the train as I faced my disgrace, I saw that Hollywood was not my success, nor my present poverty and anonymity, f…"

"For a long time I sat still, staring at the passing scenery through which the train was speeding, pondering the lonel…"

"A warm wave of happiness welled up in me. Often before I had tried to be happy, but this happiness now came unbidden,…"

"I had just begun to peel the potatoes for dinner | when my oldest sister Bessie came in, her eyes far away and very t…"

"This is a story with an unhappy ending. And I too have become Americanized enough to be terrified of unhappy endings.…"