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I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life–in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful–is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.

Betty Smith

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
And always, there was the magic of learning things.
BETTY SMITH

Always Learning Magic Things
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

Book Candy Girl House Shadow
All of us are what we have to be and everyone lives the kind of life its in him to live.
BETTY SMITH

Kind Live Life
Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’
BETTY SMITH

Beautiful Brooklyn Dear God
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
BETTY SMITH

Character Children Teaching
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

Charity Giving Strength Want
I get a heavy penance for something I couldn’t help doing. But good or bad, I am a Catholic and I’ll never be anything else.
BETTY SMITH

Anything Else Penance Something
Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
BETTY SMITH

Cost Forgiveness Inspirational
She was surprised at how tiny it seemed now. She supposed the school was just as big as it had ever been only her eyes had grown used to looking at bigger things.
BETTY SMITH

Eyes School Tiny
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.
BETTY SMITH

Men Tree Trying
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

Other School Unattainable Worlds
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 SMITH

Alive Oil Pain Scalding
Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day.
BETTY SMITH

Clearly Everything Tighter Turned
A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn’t tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.
BETTY SMITH

Lie Lying Mean Something Story
There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it’s flashing glory.
BETTY SMITH

Dark Sun Water

I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life–in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful–is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.

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Popular Authors

I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life–in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful–is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Betty Smith Quotes