An entire nation, it seemed, was standing in one long breadline, desperate for even the barest essentials. It was a crisis of monumental proportions. It was known as the Great Depression.

The 24% unemployment reached at the depths of the Great Depression was no picnic.

I had tried writing novels for many years, and they always escaped me. For a long time, I thought, 'It's just not in me to write a novel. It's not something I'm able to do.' It seemed like everything I wrote naturally ended at the bottom of page three. A picture book, three pages; an essay, three pages.

Everything I learned about the Great Depression was from a college textbook.

The years of the economic depression have been years of political reaction, and that is why the economic crisis has generated a world peace crisis.

It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression.