Moe: What the hell do you want, my head...

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?

Odets, Clifford, “Awake and Sing!,” Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays, Grove Press, p. 98.