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Anzia Yezierska

30 quotes

“This is a story with an unhappy ending. And I too have become Americanized enough to be terrified of unhappy endings. Yet I have to drop all my work to write it.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This ancient past that I had despised and rejected with the ruthlessness of youth now had me by the throat. I had never really broken away. I had only denied that which I was in my blood and bones. “Poverty ... an ornament . . . like a red ribbon on a white horse. . . .” Those were my father’s words.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...It was a gesture of simple kindness, but it stirred currents in me that had never before been touched. The mountain of hurts I carried on my back from czarist Russia, and the hurts piled up looking for a job in America, dissolved. I had been accepted, recognized as a person....I tasted the bread and wine of equality. (Part Two, Chapter I)”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Years ago, in Hollywood, Samuel Goldwyn said to me that to tell a good story, you must know the end before you begin it. And if you know the end, you can sum up the whole plot in a sentence. But I had always plunged into writing before I knew where it would take me. If a story was alive, it worked itself out as I wrote it.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had sought security in the mud and in the stars, sought it in the quick riches and glory of Hollywood and in the security wage of W.P.A. I sought it everywhere but in myself. Suddenly I felt like that ship-wrecked sailor who had been picked up, dying of thirst, unaware that the current into which he had drifted was fresh water.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“on the train as I faced my disgrace, I saw that Hollywood was not my success, nor my present poverty and anonymity, failure. I saw that "success," "failure," "poverty," "riches," were price tags, money values of the market place which had mesmerized and sidetracked me for years.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a long time I sat still, staring at the passing scenery through which the train was speeding, pondering the loneliness in each individual soul. The struggle of man, alone with the feeble resources of courage at his command, against a universe that cares nothing for his hopes and fears.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stars in their infinite peace seemed to pour their healing light into me. I thought of captives in prison, the sick and the suffering from the beginning of time who had looked to these stars for strength. What was my little sorrow to the centuries of pain which those stars had watched? So near they seemed, so compassionate. My bitter hurt seemed to grow small and drop away. If I must go on alone, I should still have silence and the high stars to walk with me. (p220)”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art should be free, like sunlight and beauty. The only compensation for the artist is the chance to feed hungry hearts. ("Brothers")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Americans of tomorrow, the America that is every day nearer coming to be, will be too wise, too open-hearted, too friendly-handed, to let the least last-comer at their gates knock in vain with his gifts unwanted. ("America and I")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Spring was in the air. But such radiant, joyous spring as one coming out of the dark shadows of the Ghetto never could dream. Earth and sky seemed to sing with the joy of an unceasing holiday. Rebecca Yudelson felt as if she had suddenly stepped into fairyland where the shadow of sorrow or sickness, where the black blight of poverty had never been. (beginning of "Dreams and Dollars")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One glance at his wife's tight-drawn mouth warned Reb Ravinsky of the torrent of wrath about to burst over his head. "Nu, my bread-giver? Did you bring me the rent?" she hurled at him between clenched teeth. (beginning of "The Lord Giveth")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My heart chokes in me like in a prison! I'm dying for a little love and I got nobody-nobody!" wailed Shenah Pessah, as she looked out of the dismal basement window. (beginning of "Wings")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts." ("Wings")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like all people who have nothing, I lived on dreams. (beginning of "The Miracle")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With the suitcase containing all her worldly possessions under her arm, Sophie Sapinsky elbowed her way through the noisy ghetto crowds. Pushcart peddlers and pullers-in shouted and gesticulated. Women with market-baskets pushed and shoved one another, eyes straining with the one thought-how to get the food a penny cheaper. With the same strained intentness, Sophie scanned each tenement, searching for a room cheap enough for her dwindling means. (beginning of "My Own People")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every breath I drew was a breath of fear, every shadow a stifling shock, every footfall struck on my heart like the heavy boot of the Cossack. (beginning of "How I Found America")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. ("How I found America")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Shenah Pessah paused in the midst of scrubbing the stairs of the tenement. "Ach!" she sighed. "How can his face still burn so in me when he is so long gone? How the deadness in me flames up with life at the thought of him!" (beginning of "Hunger")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In an air-shaft so narrow that you could touch the next wall with your bare hands, Hanneh Breineh leaned out and knocked on her neighbor's window. (first lines)”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world is a wheel always turning.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trouble with us is that the ghetto of the Middle Ages and the children of the twentieth century have to live under one roof.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...But every step of my writing career was a brutal fight, like the stealing of that oatmeal from hungry children.” Even the waiters stopped removing plates and stood with the trays in their hands, listening openmouthed. One confession led to another. “When I banked the money the movies paid me for Hungry Hearts, the elation of suddenly possessing a fortune was overshadowed by the voice of conscience: What is the difference between a potbellied boss who exploits the labor of helpless workers and an author who grows rich writing of the poor?" When the applause came I felt as if I had walked out of darkness into light. (Part Two, Chapter IV)”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A warm wave of happiness welled up in me. Often before I had tried to be happy, but this happiness now came unbidden, unwilled, as though all the hells I had been through had opened a secret door. Why had I no premonition in the wandering years when I was hungering and thirsting for recognition, that this quiet joy, this sanctuary, was waiting for me after I had sunk back to anonymity? I did not have to go to far places, sweat for glory, strain for the smile from important people. All that I could ever be, the glimpses of truth I reached for everywhere, was in myself. The power that makes grass grow, fruit ripen, and guides the bird in its flight is in us all. At any moment when man becomes aware of that inner power, he can rise above the accidents of fortune that rule his outward life, creating and recreating himself out of his defeats. Yesterday I was a bungler, an idiot, a blind destroyer of myself, reaching for I knew not what and only pushing it from me in my ignorance. Today the knowledge of a thousand failures cannot keep me from this light born of my darkness, here, now.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had just begun to peel the potatoes for dinner | when my oldest sister Bessie came in, her eyes far away and very tired. She dropped on the bench by the sink and turned her head to the wall. One look at her, and I knew she had not yet found work. I went on peeling the potatoes, but I no more knew what my hands were doing. I felt only the dark hurt of her weary eyes. I was about ten years old then. But from always it was heavy on my heart the worries for the house as if I was mother. I knew that the landlord came that morning hollering for the rent. And the whole family were hanging on Bessie’s neck for her wages. Unless she got work soon, we’d be thrown in the street to shame and to laughter for the whole world. (first lines)”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ever since I began to read the American magazines one burning question has consumed me: Why is it that only the thoughts of educated people are written up? Why shouldn't sometimes a servant girl or a janitress or a coal-heaver give his thoughts to the world? We who are forced to do the drudgery of the world, and who are considered ignorant because we have no time for school, could say a lot of new and different things, if only we had a chance to get a hearing. Very rarely I'd come across a story about a shop-girl or a washerwoman. But they weren't real stories. They were twisted pictures of the way the higher-ups see us people. They weren't as we are. They were as unreal as the knowledge of the rich about the poor. Often I'd read those smooth-flowing stories about nothing at all, and I'd ask myself, Why is it that so many of the educated, with nothing to say, know how to say that nothing with such an easy flow of words, while I, with something so aching to be said, can say nothing? I was like a prison world full of choked-in voices, all beating in my brain to be heard. The minute I'd listen to one voice a million other voices would rush in crying for a hearing, till I'd get too excited and mixed up to know what or where.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel like a starved man who is so bewildered by the first sight of food that he wants to grab and devour the ice-cream, the roast, and the entrée all in one gulp. For ages and ages, my people in Russia had no more voice than the broomstick in the corner. The poor had no more chance to say what they thought or felt than the dirt under their feet. And here, in America, a miracle has happened to them. They can lift up their heads like real people. After centries of suppression, they are allowed to speak. Is it a wonder that I am too excited to know where to begin? All the starved, unlived years crowd into my throat and choke me. I don't know whether it is joy or sorrow that hurts me so. I only feel that my release is wrung with the pain of all those back of me who lived and died, their dumbness pressing down on them like stones on the heart. (beginning of "Mostly About Myself")”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source