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 SMITHIf you love someone, you’d rather suffer the pain alone to spare them.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm.
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Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
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Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
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How much do they be paying you?” he asked mellowly. “The usual salary. A little more than they think I’m worth and a little less than I think I’m worth.
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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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She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.
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Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound but you couldn’t fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.
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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.
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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.
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Intolerance is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror, and heart and soul breaking of the world.
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If you love someone, you’d rather suffer the pain alone to spare them.
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But 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.
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What must I do, mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?” “The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read.
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People looking up at her–at her smooth pretty vivacious face–had no way of knowing about the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.
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Well’ Francie decided, ‘I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life – and nothing else but’.
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There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people that are unlucky.
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She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie’s secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father stumbling home drunk. She was all of these things and of something more…
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“I wouldn’t want that to get around, Annie.” “You don’t mean that, Carl.” “Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie.” “Why?” “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” “Do they call them beanies in Rome?” she asked artlessly. “This is the silliest conversation.
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Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence.
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She went out and took a last long look at the shabby little library. She knew she would never see it again.
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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.
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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?
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I know that’s what people say– you’ll get over it. I’d say it, too. But I know it’s not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won’t forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.
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Francie looked at her legs. They were long, slender, and exquisitely molded. She wore the sheerest of flawless silk stockings, and expensively made high-heeled pumps shod her beautifully arched feet.
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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.”
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Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!
BETTY SMITH