And 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 SMITHIs it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
More Betty Smith Quotes
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I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you’d give your life to spare them from.
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It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
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They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.
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We’ll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory…let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.
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Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.
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I’ll not punish you for having an imagination.
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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.
BETTY SMITH -
The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child’s life.
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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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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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Look 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.
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She told Papa about it. He made her stick out her tongue and he felt her wrist. He shook his head sadly and said, “You have a bad case, a very bad case.” “Of what?” “Growing up.
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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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There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people that are unlucky.
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The difference between rich and poor”, said Francie, “is that the poor do everything with thier own hands and the rich hire hands to do things.
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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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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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Sometimes 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,
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Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
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In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
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Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants.
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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.
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There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it’s flashing glory.
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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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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.
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As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed.
BETTY SMITH