“I never saw so much life left in someone who had lived so much," said Bernice Latelle, a gospel singer who lived in Bessie's neighborhood and heard her at the Wander Inn. "I don't think anybody or anything could break that woman's spirit.”

“I felt I had thrown away so much inmy life, but I also felt an unspoken bond between me and my city.I'd spent so much time wandering the streets of L.A. and hikingthrough the Hollywood Hills that I sensed there was a nonhumanentity, maybe the spirit of the hills and the city, who had me in hersights and was looking after me. Even if I was a loner in my ownband, at least I still felt the presence of the city I lived in.”

“Ginny who lived her life with hair in the breeze, Stillman who lived his with it under his hat. And he loved her so much the worse for it.”

“I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family - and I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.”

“I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.”

“I’ve never thought much about whether I was happy or if I had fun as a child. I was a so-so girl who lived with a so-so family in a so-so village. I didn’t know that there might be another way to live, and I didn’t worry about it either.”