Well, Pa, a woman can change better than a man. A man lives, sort of, well, in jerks. A baby’s born or somebody dies and that’s a jerk. He gets a farm or loses it and that’s a jerk. With a woman, it’s all in one flow, like a stream. Little eddies and waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on. A woman looks at it that way.
ATTRIBUTION:
Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977), U.S. screenwriter, and John Ford. Ma Joad (Jane Darwell), The Grapes of Wrath, reply when Pa says she’s the one who keeps the family going (1940).
