When these plays were written it was almost impossible for me to do more or differently with them. Much of them was felt, conceived and written out of a personal need. Now after the fact, after the melancholy facts, the writer is a better craftsman, his horizon lifting wider. That temptation to improve upon these plays is often present. Nevertheless, none has been rewritten in part or whole: let them stand, crudities and all, as a small parade of a young talent discovering and shaping itself. If you have acquired by distressing sense that I now the distressing sense that I am situating myself historically, correct! Talent should be respected.

Odets understood his inner demon, which brought about the struggle of his temperament and conscience. He dramatized it in his last plays, Clash by Night, The Country Girl, The Big Knife, and The Flowering Peach. But he is also there in Lorna's description of Joe Bonaparte, the cockeyed golden boy, with his urge to power: "You're a miserable creature. You want your arm in gelt up to the elbow. You'll take fame so people won't laugh or scorn your face. You'll give your soul for those things. But every time you turn your back your little soul kicks you in the teeth. It don't give in so easy." Indeed it doesn't: when Joe, in training for a big bout, sees someone carrying a violin case, he turns pale and loses the fight he might easily have won.

Joe: I'd get another job if I could. There's no work -- you know it.

Edna : I only know we're at the bottom of the ocean.

Joe: What can I do?

Edna: Who's the man in the family, you or me?

Joe: That's no answer. Get down to brass tacks. Christ, gimme a break, too! : A coffee and Java all day. I'm hungry, too, Babe. I'd work my fingers to the bone if --

Edna: I'll open a can of salmon.

Joe: Not now. Tell me what to do!

Edna: I'm not God!

Joe: Jeez, I wish I was a kid again and didn't have to think about the next minute.

Edna: But you're not a kid and you do have to think about the next minute. You got two blondie kids sleeping in the next room. They need food and clothes. I'm not mentioning anything else — But we're stalled like a flivver in the snow. For five years I laid awake at night listening to my heart pound. For God's sake, do something, Joe, get wise. Maybe get your buddies together, maybe go on strike for better money. Poppa did it during the war and they won out. I'm turning into a sour old nag.

Edna: I know this—your boss is making suckers outa you boys every minute. Yes, and suckers out of all the wives and the poor innocent kids who'll grow up with crooked spines and sick bones. Sure, I see it in the papers, how good orange juice is for kids. But damnit our kids get colds one on top of the They look like little ghosts. Betty never saw a grapefruit. I took her to the store last week and she pointed to a stack of grapefruits. "What's that!" she said. My God, Joe— the world is supposed to be for all of us.

Flor: We wanted to have kids.

Sid: But that sort of life ain't for the dogs which is us. Christ, Baby! I get like thunder in my chest when we're together. If we went off together I could maybe look the world straight in the face, spit in its eye like a man should do. Goddamnit, it's trying to be a man on the earth. Two in life together.

Moe: What the hell do you want, my head on a plate ? Was my life so happy? Chris', my old man was a bum. I supported the whole damn family five kids and Mom. When they grew up they beat it the hell away like rabbits. Mom died. I went to the war; got clapped down like a bedbug; woke up in a room without a leg. What the hell do you think, anyone's got it better than you? I never had a home either. I'm lookin' too!

Hennie: So what?!

Moe: So you're it — you're home for me, a place to live! That's the whole parade, sickness, eating out your heart! Sometimes you meet a girl — she stops it — that's love. ... So take a chance! Be with me, Paradise. What's to lose?

Hennie: My pride!

Moe (grabbing her): What do you want? Say the word — I'll tango on a dime. Don't gimme ice when your heart's on fire!

Pike: Who are we, Mr. Gordon? If we remain silent while they make the next war—who then are we with our silence? Accomplices, Citizen! Let me talk out my heart! Don't stop me! Citizens, they have taken our sons and mangled them to death! They have left us lonely in our old age. The bellyrobbers have taken clothes from our backs. We slept in subway toilets here In Arkansas we picked fruit. I followed the crops north and dreamed of a warmer sun. We lived on and hoped. We lived on garbage dumps. Two of us found canned prunes, ate them and were poisoned for weeks. One died. Now I can't die. But we gave up to despair and life took quiet years. We worked a little. Nights I drank myself insensible. Punched my own mouth. Yes, first American ancestors and me. The circle's complete. Running away, stealing away to stick the ostrich head in sand. Living on a boat as night watchman, tied to shore, not here nor there! The American jitters! Idealism! (Punches himself violently.) There's for idealism! For those blue-gutted Yankee Doodle bastards are making other wars while we sleep. And if we remain silent while they make this war, we are the guilty ones. For we are the people, and the people is and the government, tear them down from their high places if they dast do what they did in 1914 to '18. (Slowly sits tremblingly.)

pike (in direct answer): Well, Gus is out there taking a shave.

Leo: Two and three in the morning sometimes I find him shaving in front of the mirror.

Pike: He wants to look good.

Leo: But three in the morning? For whom?

Pike: Man has to have something.

Leo: Tell me, my friend. You went around the country many times. You saw many kinds of people. Deep down in their cellars -- (pike starts eating and cracking nuts from bowl at elbow.)

Gus (entering): I shave and it come right out again.

frank (beginning to undress -- putting his coat on the back of a chair) No, I'm tired. I'll see you in the morning, before I leave.

Carp: Going away again?

Frank: South. Tex-tiles. There's hell down there in tex-tiles. (He sits on the other side of the room and looks at a paper.)

Carp: I don't begin to understand it -- tex-tiles! What's it his business if the workers in tex-tiles don't make good wages!

Mr. Bonaparte: Frank, he fight-a for eat, for good life. Why not!

Joe: With music I'm never alone when I'm alone -- Playing music ... that's like saying, "I am man. I belong here. How do you do, World -- good evening!" When I play music nothing is closed to me. I'm not afraid of people and what they say. There's no war in music. It's not like the streets. Does this sound funny?

Lorna: No.

Joe: But when you leave your room ... down in the street ... it's war! Music can't help me there. Understand?