Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?” “They’re beanies.” “They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn.” “But I’m not in Brooklyn.” “But you’re still a Brooklynite.”
BETTY SMITHDid you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?” “They’re beanies.” “They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn.” “But I’m not in Brooklyn.” “But you’re still a Brooklynite.”
BETTY SMITHSometimes I say I don’t believe in God and Jesus and Mary. I’m a bad Catholic because I miss mass once in a while and I grumble when, at confession,
BETTY SMITHI wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.
BETTY SMITHYes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants.
BETTY SMITHIf 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 SMITHIt is a good thing to learn the truth one’s self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch.
BETTY SMITHLet 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 SMITHSome people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
BETTY SMITHThe neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child’s life.
BETTY SMITHShe was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard.
BETTY SMITHAnd that’s where the whole trouble is. We’re too much alike to understand each other because we don’t even understand our own selves.
BETTY SMITHLook at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.
BETTY SMITHEyes 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 SMITHI never listen to what people tell me and I can’t read. The only way I know what is right and wrong is the way I feel about things. If I feel bad, it’s wrong. If I feel good, it’s right.
BETTY SMITHOh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
BETTY SMITHBut this tree in the yard-this tree that men chopped down…this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up it’s stump-this tree lived! It lived! And nothing could destroy it.
BETTY SMITH