She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it
BETTY SMITHMother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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I want to live for something. I don’t want to live to get charity food to give me enough strength to go back to get more charity food.
BETTY SMITH -
I’ll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Saturday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books . . . books . . . books. . . .
BETTY SMITH -
I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.
BETTY SMITH -
You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone’s yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district.
BETTY SMITH -
Eyes changed after they looked at new things. If in the years to be she were to come back, her new eyes might make everything seem different from the way she saw it now. The way it was now was the way she wanted to remember it.
BETTY SMITH -
You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.
BETTY SMITH -
It’s come at last,” she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn’t enough food in the house you pretended that you weren’t hungry so they could have more.
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Because the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe.
BETTY SMITH -
Well’ Francie decided, ‘I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life – and nothing else but’.
BETTY SMITH -
Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.
BETTY SMITH -
Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
BETTY SMITH -
Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
BETTY SMITH -
Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret
BETTY SMITH -
She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart; the heart that was breaking – was aching – was dancing -was heavy laden – that leaped for joy – that was heavy in sorrow – that turned over – that stood still. She really believed the heart actually did those things.
BETTY SMITH -
It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.
BETTY SMITH -
She went out and took a last long look at the shabby little library. She knew she would never see it again.
BETTY SMITH -
It’s a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No, I don’t want to understand it all. It’s beautiful because it’s always a mystery.
BETTY SMITH -
It doesn’t take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.
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Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
BETTY SMITH -
If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is.
BETTY SMITH -
I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life’s too short. If you ever find a man you love, don’t waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, ‘I love you. How about getting married?
BETTY SMITH -
From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.
BETTY SMITH -
And always, there was the magic of learning things.
BETTY SMITH -
Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life…And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
BETTY SMITH -
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
BETTY SMITH -
Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn’t happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?
BETTY SMITH