“I've known what it is to be hungry, but I always went right to a restaurant.”

“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet.”

“They’s no use kiddin’ ourself any more,’ said Tommy Haley. ‘He might get down to thirty-seven in a pinch, but if he done below that a mouse could stop him. He’s a welter; that’s what he is and he knows it as well as I do. He’s growed like a weed in the last six mont’s. I told him, I says, “If you don’t quit growin’ they won’t be nobody for you to box, only Willard and them.” He says, “Well, I wouldn’t run away from Willard if I weighed twenty pounds more.”’‘He must hate himself,’ said Tommy’s brother.‘I never seen a good one that didn’t.”

“Are you lost, Daddy?" I asked tenderly. "Shut up," he explained.”

“Some like them hot,some like them cold.Some like them when they're not to darn oldSome like them fat,some like them lean.Some like them only at sweet sixteen.Some like them dark,some like them light.Some like them in the park,late at night.Some like them fickle,some like them true,But the time I like them is when they're like you”

“How can you write if you can't cry?”

“They gave each other a smile with a future in it.”