Never Love a Stranger Quotes

“But, darling, you’re my world, my life.” She kissed me. “And what will you do? You have no job—nothing. How will you live? I can’t bear to think of you going back to those cheap little jobs. Here with me you are safe. I can look after you, protect you. I can give you the world—anything you want.” I remembered something I had read. “What does it profit a man,” I quoted, “if in gaining the world he loses his own soul?”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Ten years! It was queer. Fennelli hadn’t changed much in ten years, but I knew I had. I wondered how he recognized me so readily. Maybe it was something about the way I looked; maybe it was the situation. I don’t know. I couldn’t understand. I went back a long way. For the first time in a long while, I thought about the folks and wondered what they were doing and where they were, and about the kids I used to know—Jerry and Marty and Janet. What had happened to them? But it was such a long time ago it was hard to remember. I remembered breakfast with the folks: the smell of the rolls, slightly warm from the bakery after I had just brought them in—the way my aunt would smile at me. I remembered high school and the kids laughing as we crossed the big yard going home. I remembered so many things, and all of a sudden I began to feel old and tired.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“It wasn’t too tough a trip. There were many others like me riding the rods for one reason or another, some heading nowhere in particular—people without anchors, just drifting along. Others were going someplace definite—home or to a new place where a job might be found. They too were like other people, some nice and helpful, some nasty and mean, but on the whole I got along. I minded my own business, never stayed on one train too long, jumped off at an occasional town along the route to hole up for a day and night in a cheap room and eat a few decent meals, and then I’d be on my way again.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I walked over to her. She took my hand. “You’re a fine kid, Frank. There’s something wild and hard inside you that needs gentling, but there’s also something fine and bright inside you. Whatever you do, don’t change. Don’t lose that something that keeps you from being hard and rotten.” She laughed. “I must be getting old,” she said, “to be talking like that.” She took another drink from the table. I was silent. The old dame kind of liked me. “Well?” she asked. “Good-bye,” I said. On an impulse I bent and kissed her cheek. It was old and dry to the touch, like a piece of old paper. She put her hand to her cheek half wonderingly. She thought aloud: “It has been a long time since—” Her words trailed off.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Friends are more than just people who will listen to what you have to say and agree with you. Sometimes they have to tell you things you don’t want to hear for your own sake. Please listen to what we have to say.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“From the judge who lifted the Philadelphia ban on Never Love a Stranger, on Harold’s books: “I would rather my daughter learn about sex from the pages of a Harold Robbins novel than behind a barn door.” On writing essentials: “Power, sex, deceit, and wealth: the four ingredients to a successful story.” On the drive to write: “I don’t want to write and put it in a closet because I’m not writing for myself. I’m writing to be heard. I’m writing because I’ve got something to say to people about the world I live in, the world I see, and I want them to know about it.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“On the inspiration for Never Love a Stranger: “[The book begins with] a poem from To the Unborn by Stella Benson. There were a lot of disappointments especially during the Depression—fuck it—in everyone’s life there are disappointments and lost hope…. No one escapes. That’s why you got to be grateful every day that you get to the next.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Don’t let him grow up as I did. Sheltered and clothed and fed and cared for, and yet poorer in human qualities than the poorest of men. A man needs more than food and clothes and money to make him human. He needs love and kindness and affection. He needs people, a family, to give him an anchor, to give him roots in the earth, in society, to teach him the true values in the world. The”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“A long time ago Marty once compared me to Hitler. I laughed then for I didn’t understand what he meant. Now I know. I learned it from living with Ruth and I learned from these last five months in Europe. I learned that you cannot live without regard for society and the so-called common man. For to live so, is to live without regard for yourself. And I began to wonder, what it was that made me what I became. Then I realized for the first time it was from living alone. A man can live alone if he shares his rooms with twenty other humans and shares his heart with none.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I was in Germany in 1935,” he began seriously. “I saw what happened there—what happens to a country when gangsters take over.” “Are you talking about Hitler?” I asked. “What’s he got to do with me?” I fished for a cigarette. I remembered what had happened last June when France fell. People walked around in the streets talking in subdued voices, looking bad. There was a great deal of muttering about going to war with Germany. Business fell off a few days but jumped back to normal quickly enough. I think it even picked up a little. But we didn’t go to war and I didn’t think we would—especially if we kept on minding our own business.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I thought so too,” he said, shaking his head, “but now I don’t know. I had hoped that by working with the people, we would forget the old animosities and differences. That’s the only way for us to get along: by working together in a common effort. That way we’d get to know each other and understand that each of us are looking for the same thing. Then we wouldn’t have any differences.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“My salary was ten dollars a week, to which I added the extra two dollars Harry used to give me and about three dollars in tips that I used to average, which made a comfortable total of fifteen a week and was enough for me to get along on. I could use more money, but then, who couldn’t? Jobs were pretty hard to get and I thought I was doing pretty well. It wasn’t as much money as I had made years ago when I worked for Keough, but somehow I wasn’t too interested in trying to get back into that work. I had the idea that I would eventually work my way up into a better paying job. The Horatio Alger idea was still a good one as far as I knew.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“There are many children like Frank in this world—too many kids that have to bypass their youth in order to provide themselves with necessities. Every child deserves a break. I’d like to take part in seeing that they get one.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I can wait,’ she said simply. ‘He has to have this chance.’ She drew me down to the chair beside her and rested my head on her shoulder where I could hear her fine, soft breathing. ‘You see,’ she said reflectively, ‘he never had a chance to really be young; he had too much to fight, too hard a world to face. He was never an adolescent in the literal sense of the word. He sprang from childhood directly into manhood. That’s why he seemed old to us kids. That’s why some of us liked him and others didn’t. There weren’t any halfway measures in the way you felt about him. It was one way or the other. But beneath it all he was just a little boy hungry for someone to like him, to love him.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Right now,” she said smiling. “But remember one thing. Leave the girls alone. I don’t mean you shouldn’t fool around once in a while when you feel like. But don’t play any favorites. I don’t want any arguments among my girls.” “Yeah,” I said, “I understand.” She came close to me. “You do your job and mind your own business, and they’ll never find you here.” “That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “You got a job,” she said, and went over to the cabinet and poured herself another drink. After she swallowed it she looked at me again. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Frankie,” I said, “Frank Kane. What’s yours?” “Just call me Grandma,” she said, and tossed off the drink.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I heard my aunt and uncle come to the door. I heard her voice through the door. “Morris, I’d better go in and speak to him. Did you see the look on his face? It was as if he was a little boy locked out of his home.” “No,” my uncle said. “Let him alone. He’ll get over it soon. He’s a real man.” They walked away.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“As you know, Francis, I hate like the dickens to have to send any boy to the reformatory. I refuse to believe that any child is intentionally bad. The entire theory behind my work is to prove to certain people that incorrigible children are only incorrigible because we make them that way—that their failure is not theirs alone, but ours as well.” She smiled at me. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I never went to Hebrew school or to a church or synagogue afterward, but then I never gave much thought to God either. I felt confident that I would be able to deal with Him when the time came for me to have to—just as I would deal with everything else in my life, when the time came and not before.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“My aunt touched my shoulder, I opened my eyes startled for a moment. She was smiling softly but I could see the tears sparkling in the corner of her eyes. “It’s the same God, Frankie.” I could feel the tension flow out of me. Suddenly I smiled at her. She was right: the Word meant God in no matter what language you spoke it—English, Latin or… Hebrew.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I remember many years later when I was going to med school that I thought of him and realized that it was as much due to him as anyone else that I was doing as I did. He once said something to me about a fellow I didn’t care very much for. ‘Oh, he’s all right. You just gotta understand him, that’s all.’ “And in those words I found an answer to almost everything that had been festering in the back of my mind. If you understand a man, if you know why he does things, you don’t have to be afraid of him, you don’t have to let your fear lead you to destroy him. I don’t know whether I thought it all out when I was young or when I was in school, but in some way I associate the two as if they happened together.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“It is a mortal sin to be a Jew?” I blurted out. His face softened as he stood there looking at me. When he finally spoke, he spoke very slowly and quietly: “No, son, it isn’t. It couldn’t be. You see a lot of us are prone to forget Jesus Christ was a Jew.” “But, Brother, if I’m a Jew and I live with my folks, I could not come here to church. And I would not attend confession and be absolved of my sins. Then when I die I would surely burn in hell.” He came back to me and took my arm. “Francis,” his voice was very low, “as much as we like to think it is, heaven is not a private preserve of us Catholics. It is a place where all good people are welcome. I like to believe that it is open to all mankind regardless of the manner in which they worship our Lord, as long as they do believe in Him and live according to His lights. Be a good lad, Francis, and love your people. Do what is right and ye’ll have naught to fear.” He smiled. “Do ye understand me, son?”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“I passed the dock at Fifth-fourth Street where the kids were swimming. I leaned against a pole and watched them, diving and splashing and swimming and hollering. I felt like going over there and joining them, but I had to get back with the bets. A voice behind me said: “I bet you’d like to go with them, Frankie.” I turned around. It was Silk Fennelli. “Why no, sir… I mean… that is…” He smiled, “That’s all right, kid, I understand. I know how you feel. You’d like to be with them—swimming, playing ball, or shooting craps on the corners. But you can’t. You got a responsibility—yourself. Those kids don’t think any further ahead than the next minute, but you’re different. You want to get ahead. You want to amount to something. You’re going to be big time, and you’re learning now that for everything you get you got to give up something else—something maybe that you want or would like to do. And you have to make up your mind which it’s going to be. I was like you once.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“He stood up at the side of my bed. “Now go to sleep, lad. Ye’ll be needing ye’re strength for tomorrow. I’m after taking ye to Central Park for sleigh riding. For ’tis snowing, which ye can see if ye’d but put your head to the window.” And I put my head to the window and sure enough the snow was coming down in great big flakes. Dry-eyed, I lay back in bed. I heard Brother Bernhard go back into the hall. He met someone there and I could hear him saying: “I don’t mind the politicians breaking their promises to their voters, but I wish the scoundrels wouldna try to break the hearts of little boys as well.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Well, Francis, here’s five dollars more for the church, but before you put it in the box tell me, what do you want more than anything else for Christmas?” “An electric train, sir,” I said. “An electric train you shall have, my boy. I have a son just about your age at home and that’s what he wants too. You both shall have it.” He smiled at me as I put the five-dollar bill in the church box. I counted the days till Christmas. Christmas morning, when I went down to the big tree in the dining room, I expected to find the electric train, but it wasn’t there. Maybe it didn’t come yet. I couldn’t imagine he would forget. The day passed and no electric train came. I didn’t really give up hope until I had gone to bed. Then quietly I began to cry into my pillow.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Jerry looked at me and then laughed. Jerry was no dunce. He knew what was on my mind. Jerry was a strange friend. He wasn’t an easy one to make friends with; neither was he stuck-up. He was just—particular. I don’t know why he liked me, but if I could see far enough ahead, if I could only have known what Jerry and I—but we’ll get to it when we get to it. It’s bad enough we can look back and remember; it would be a lot worse if we knew what was coming.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“Yes, madam,” said Mrs. Cozzolina. She knew a lady when she saw one. There was something about them that stood out even when they had fallen upon hard times.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“These American girls,” she was thinking as her pudgy fingers lightly shaped the dough and poked bits of chicken into them, the sweat damp on her forehead and just over her lips where the slight, dark shadow of a mustache was visible. “Planning babies so they don’t have to carry them in the summer! Who ever heard of such a thing? Why in the old country,” she smiled thinking of when she was young, “they just had them. You didn’t plan children there.” She had a right to think the American girls were foolish. She was a midwife and business had been bad all summer, and she had seven children of her own to feed since her husband had died.”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger

“poured the coffee for me. My hand touched hers as I had started for it, and we looked up at each other, startled by the accidental touching. Her eyes were blue and deep. Then I looked down at my cup. Marty started to say something but didn’t say it. We just sat there quietly for a few minutes. Then I said: “It’s damn nice of you two to come over!” “It was my idea.” Marty said, “I wanted to see you. It’s been so long and I’ve been curious, and Ruth…” “What about Ruth?” I asked. Ruth spoke up. “I wanted him”
― Harold Robbins, Never Love a Stranger