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Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard.

Betty Smith

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
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
BETTY SMITH

Children Printed Reading Word
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 SMITH

Beatles Country Ever People Things
Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
BETTY SMITH

People Quarrels Two
Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere – be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar.
BETTY SMITH

Liar Ragged Sincere Truthful
You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.
BETTY SMITH

Born Dies Rotten
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
Well’ Francie decided, ‘I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life – and nothing else but’.
BETTY SMITH

Giving Headache Wells
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
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
BETTY SMITH

Character Children Teaching
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
Because the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe.
BETTY SMITH

Believe Children Imagination
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 SMITH

Day Every Good Know Read Secret Some
I 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 SMITH

Fake Horse People Wonderful
A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.
BETTY SMITH

Children Want Forget never
Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Looks Perspective

Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard.

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Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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