- Essie Rubin: Take a walk around Nostrand Avenue and you'll see. That element is moving in. The place is full of them.
- Jerry Black: What element Mrs. Rubin?
- Essie Rubin: You know what I have reference to: colored, puerto rican...
- Jerry Black: Really, I seem to remember that in this very neighborhood year ago, they didn't allow Jews
- Essie Rubin: What does one got to do with the other?
- Jerry Black: Everything. Mrs. Rubin, the only way to stop prejudice is to stop it in yourself
- Essie Rubin: But honestly, it's not a question of prejudice, I just don't like to live with them.
- Bertha Jacoby: I wanted to make a friend out of an enemy. And what did I do? I made an enemy out of a friend.
- Bertha Jacoby: Remember papa's joke? "I'm glad I don't like spinach because if I liked it, I'd eat it, and I hate it."