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Occasionally there is a moment in a person’s life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment.

Betty Smith

They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.
BETTY SMITH

Anguish Compassion Suffering
Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn’t adopt chemistry as a religion.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Lecture People
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
BETTY SMITH

Character Children Teaching
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

Air Neighborhood Nice Sunday Took
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

Brooklyn Dream Happen Real
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.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Long Nothing Writing
But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself with the vow that when she grew up, she would work hard, save money and buy every single book that she liked.
BETTY SMITH

Book Hard Smell Work
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

Alone Being Loneliness Understanding
She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination.
BETTY SMITH

Believing Start Starting Ugly World
Sometimes I think it’s better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be… safe. At least she knows she’s living.
BETTY SMITH

Fighting Pain Thinking
Occasionally there is a moment in a person’s life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment.
BETTY SMITH

Humility Understanding Wisdom
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

Dream Pieces Sleep
Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains – a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone – just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.
BETTY SMITH

Book Cigarette Contentment Little Read Strong Things
What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
BETTY SMITH

Between Grown Kept Stories Writing
“Beautiful legs, then, is the secret of being a mistriss,” concluded Francie. She looked down at her own long thin legs. “I’ll never make it, I guess.” Sighing , she resigned herself to a sinless life.
BETTY SMITH

Beautiful Herself Legs Looked Resigned
If you love someone, you’d rather suffer the pain alone to spare them.
BETTY SMITH

Pain Someone Suffering

Occasionally there is a moment in a person’s life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment.

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Occasionally there is a moment in a person’s life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment.

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