Anzia Yezierska Quotes

• When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Wings, World, Forget

  Anzia Yezierska (2014). “Hungry Hearts: Stories of the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience”, p.6, Courier Corporation

  51 Copy quote

• As one of the dumb, voiceless ones I speak. One of the millions of immigrants beating, beating out their hearts at your gates for a breath of understanding.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Heart, Understanding, Dumb

  Anzia Yezierska (1923). “Children of Loneliness”

  22 Copy quote

• Like all people who have nothing, I lived on dreams.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Dream, People

  Anzia Yezierska (2010). “All I Could Never Be”, p.69, Wildside Press LLC

  17 Copy quote

• I'm one of the millions of immigrant children, children of loneliness, wandering between worlds that are at once too old and too new to live in.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Children, Loneliness, World

  Anzia Yezierska (1923). “Children of Loneliness”

  11 Copy quote

• In America, money takes the place of God.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Money, America, United States

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  16 Copy quote

• Without comprehension, the immigrant would forever remain shut - a stranger in America. Until America can release the heart as well as train the hand of the immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Heart, Hands, America

  "Hungry Hearts and Other Stories" by Anzia Yezierska, ("How I Found America", pt. 3), 1920.

  18 Copy quote

• The power that makes grass grow, fruit ripen, and guides the bird in flight is in us all.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Bird, Fruit, Flight

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  13 Copy quote

• At last I came to college. I rushed for it with the outstretched arms of youth's aching hunger to give and take of life's deepest, and highest, and I came against the solid wall of the well-fed, well-dressed world - the frigid whitewashed wall of cleanliness. ... How I pinched, and scraped, and starved myself, to save enough to come to college! Every cent of the tuition fee I paid was drops of sweat and blood from underpaid laundry work. And what did I get for it? A crushed spirit, a broken heart, a stinging sense of poverty that I never felt before.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Education, Disappointment, Wall

  17 Copy quote

• Poor people who had escaped from poverty as I had, feared it, hated it and fled from it all their lives. Those born rich could afford to be touched by it.

  Anzia Yezierska

  People, Poverty, Rich

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  14 Copy quote

• A man is free to go up as high as he can reach up to; but I, with all my style and pep, can't get a man my equal because a girl is always judged by her mother.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Girl, Mother, Men

  Anzia Yezierska (2014). “Hungry Hearts: Stories of the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience”, p.168, Courier Corporation

  16 Copy quote

• This fire in me, it's not just the hunger of a woman for a man - it's the hunger of all my people back of me, from all ages, for light, for the life higher!

  Anzia Yezierska

  Passion, Men, Fire

  Anzia Yezierska (2014). “Hungry Hearts: Stories of the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience”, p.50, Courier Corporation

  9 Copy quote

• 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 fortune. Poverty is a bag with a hole at the bottom.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Giving, Charity, Poverty

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  8 Copy quote

• Those who were high go down low, and those who've been low go up higher.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Lows, Higher

  Anzia Yezierska (1979). “The open cage: an Anzia Yezierska collection”

  9 Copy quote

• The only compensation for the artist is the chance to feed hungry hearts.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Heart, Artist, Chance

  Anzia Yezierska (1979). “The open cage: an Anzia Yezierska collection”

  11 Copy quote

• I tasted the bread and wine of equality.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Wine, Equality, Bread

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  9 Copy quote

• I was so obsessed and consumed with my grievances that I could not get away from myself and think things out in the light. I was in the grip of that blinding, destructive, terrible thing -- righteous indignation.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Thinking, Light, Obsessed

  Anzia Yezierska (2014). “Hungry Hearts: Stories of the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience”, p.139, Courier Corporation

  13 Copy quote

• The world is a wheel always turning.

  Anzia Yezierska

  World, Wheels

  Anzia Yezierska (1979). “The open cage: an Anzia Yezierska collection”

  10 Copy quote

• If I had never met him I would have dreamed him into being.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Love, Dream, Mets

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  9 Copy quote

• Though my father was poor and had nothing, the Torah, the poetry of prophets, was his daily bread.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Father, Bread, Poor

  Anzia Yezierska (1979). “The open cage: an Anzia Yezierska collection”

  9 Copy quote

• I too was frightened the first time I felt I hated my father. I felt like a criminal. But could I help it what was inside of me? I had to feel what I felt even if it killed me.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Father, Criminals, Firsts

  Anzia Yezierska (1975). “Bread Givers: A Novel : a Struggle Between a Father of the Old World and a Daughter of the New”

  11 Copy quote

• I've borne the shame of mother while you bought her off with a present and a treat here and there. God knows how hard I tried to civilize her so as not to have to blush with shame when I take her anywhere. I dressed her in the most stylish Paris models, but Delancey Street sticks out from every inch of her. Whenever she opens her mouth, I'm done for. You fellows had your chance to rise in the world because a man is free to go up as high as he can reach up to; but I, with all my style and pep, can't get a man my equal because a girl is always judged by her mother.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Girl, Mother, Men

  Anzia Yezierska (2014). “Hungry Hearts: Stories of the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience”, p.168, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

• The real thing creates its own poetry.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Real, Real Things

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  7 Copy quote

• Poverty was an ornament on a learned man like a red ribbon on a white horse.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Horse, Men, White

  Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

  7 Copy quote

• Science has salvaged scrap metal and even found vitamins and valuable oils in refuse, but old people are extravagantly wasted.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Oil, People, Age

  Anzia Yezierska (1985). “Hungry hearts and other stories”, Persea Books

  8 Copy quote

• Woe is me! Bitter is me! For what is my life? Why didn't the ship go under and drown me before I came to America?

  Anzia Yezierska

  America, Woe Is Me, Ships

  7 Copy quote

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