You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses.

- Mary Antin

On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.

- Mary Antin

A characteristic thing about the aspiring immigrant is the fact that he is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect success in hi…

- Mary Antin

The past was only my cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big.

- Mary Antin

There was one public school for boys, and one for girls, but Jewish children were admitted in limited numbers - only ten to a hundred; and even the l…

- Mary Antin

It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on, if only I do not have …

- Mary Antin

It is only that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling…

- Mary Antin

A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession.

- Mary Antin

The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.

- Mary Antin