The Open Cage Quotes

“I want knowledge. How, like a starved thing in the dark, I'm driven to reach for it.”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“Back in my own place, the sky burst in upon me from the window and I was reminded of a long-forgotten passage in War and Peace. Napoleon, walking through the battlefield, sees a dying soldier and, holding up the flag of France, declaims: “Do you know, my noble hero, that you have given your life for your country?” “Please! Please!” the soldier cries. “You are blotting out the sky.”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“I’m working my way through college,” she said. “I’ve been on my own since twelve.” She was so pretty! How could she have known poverty and look so gay, so decorative? I turned to the other girls around me, my feeling of righteousness begging to crumble. Just because they had never been starved enough to steal bread from hungry children, I had condemned them as callous and frivolous. The truth with which I wanted to shock them had been only the vanity of the injured showing off scars. I had erected a wall of self-defense around me and shot arrows of envy at them. Immune to envy, immune to criticism, they swept across the wall and conquered me. All at once I loved them. As I had made a bunch of confetti from my prepared speech, so I would have gladly made a bonfire of everything I had to feed the flame of their trusting youth.”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“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?”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“Nevertheless,” he insisted, “I’ve found wonderful material for my new book in all this. I think I’ve got a new angle on the social types of your East Side.” An icy band tightened about her heart. “Social types,” her lips formed. How could she possibly confide to this man of the terrible tragedy that she had been through that very day? Instead of the understanding and sympathy that she had hoped to find, there were only smooth platitudes, the sightseer’s surface interest in curious “social types.” Frank Baker talked on. Rachel seemed to be listening, but her eyes had a far-off, abstracted look. She was quiet as a spinning-top is quiet, her thoughts and emotions revolving within her at high speed. “That man in love with me? Why, he doesn’t see me or feel me. I don’t exist to him. He’s only stuck on himself, blowing his own horn. Will he never stop with his ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I,’? Why, I was a crazy lunatic to think that just because we took the same courses in college, he would understand me out in the real world.”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“Hanneh Hayyeh,” said Mrs. Preston, with feeling, “these laws are far from just, but they are all we have so far. Give us time. We are young. We are still learning. We’re doing our best.” Numb with suffering the woman of the ghetto looked straight into the eyes of Mrs. Preston. “And you too—you too hold by the landlord’s side?—Oi—I see! Perhaps you too got property out by agents.” A sigh that had in it the resignation of utter hopelessness escaped from her. “Nothing can hurt me no more—And you always stood out to me in my dreams as the angel from love and beautifulness. You always made-believe to me that you’re only for democracy.” Tears came to Mrs. Preston’s eyes. But she made no move to defend herself or reply and Hanneh Hayyeh walked out in silence.”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“What should I do? Aby is coming from France any day, and he’s got to have a home to come to. I will have to take out from my eating the meat and the milk to save together the extra five dollars. People! Give me an advice! What else can I do? If a wild wolf falls on you in the black night, will crying help you?” With a gesture of abject despair, she fell prone upon the bench. “Gottuniu! If there is any justice and mercy on this earth, then may the landlord be tortured like he is torturing me! May the fires burn him and the waters drown him! May his flesh be torn from him in pieces and his bones be ground in the teeth of wild dogs!”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection

“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.”
― Anzia Yezierska, The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection