“Our family used to be like this strong cup,” thought Francie. “It was whole and sound and held things well. When papa died, the first crack came. And this fight tonight made another crack. Soon there will be so many cracks that the cup will break and we'll all be pieces instead of the whole thing together. I don't want this to happen, yet I'm deliberately making a deep crack.”

“Going home in the trolley, Francie held the shoebox in her lap because Mama had no lap now. Francie thought deep thoughts during her ride. 'If what Granma Mary Rommely said is true, then it must be that no one ever dies, really. Papa is gone, but he's still here in many ways. He's here in Neeley who looks just like him and in Mama who knew him so long. He's here in his mother who began him and who is still living. Maybe I will have a boy some day who looks like Papa and has all of Papa's good without the drinking. And that boy will have a boy. And that boy will have a boy. It might be there is no real death.' Her thougths went to McGarrity. 'No one would ever believe there was any part of Papa in him.”

“you’ll always come out all right – no matter what. You’re like me that way.’ And that’s where the whole trouble is,” thought Francie. “We’re too much alike to understand each other because we don’t even understand our own selves. . .”

“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?”

“Well' Francie decided, 'I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life - and nothing else but'.”

“Well," Francie decided, "I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life-and nothing else but.”

“You'll never raise that one,' they told her. 'Her color ain't good. If the good Lord takes her, it will be for the best.'...Don't say that,' Katie held her baby tightly. 'It's not better to die. Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's grwoing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way...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. Look at those children...You could take any one of them and wash him good and dress him up and sit him in a fine house and you would think he was beautiful.'You've got fine ideas but a very sick baby, Katie,' they told her.This baby will live,' said Katie fiercely. 'I'll make it live.'And Francie lived, choking and whimpering her way through that first year.”