“They came with their children, for no one left the children behind - it was for the children they had come, wanting to give them the halls of American, the streets, the seasons, the New York of America.”

“The weary Italian woman nodded at her children behind her. “Where we came from, everybody lives only one kind of life. Alessandro said he wanted his children to choose the life, not the life to choose the children. And also,” she added, panting, slowing down and wiping her brow, “he said America is the only place in the world where even the poor can be smart.”

“We had so many dreams as children. Where do they go when we grow? Are they swallowed up by the mundane things of everyday life? Or do we lose them, leave them behind us in the dust, for new children to find and take up?”

“Like more than one Englishman in New York, he looked upon Americans as hopeless children whom Providence had perversely provided with this great swollen fat fowl of a continent. Any way one chose to relieve them of their riches, short of violence, was sporting, if not morally justifiable, since they would only squander it in some tasteless and useless fashion, in any event.”

“Children always want to look behind mirrors.”

“every parent will leave a personal legacy (though not all parents will leave behind an inheritance). what i give to my children or what i do for my children is not as important as what i leave in them. ”