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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.

Betty Smith

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
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
And you must tell the child the legends I told you – as my mother told them to me and her mother to her. You must tell the fairy tales of the old country. You must tell of those not of the earth who live forever in the hearts of the people.
BETTY SMITH

Children Country Invisible Legends Mother Steel
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
BETTY SMITH

Children Printed Reading Word
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

Children Mother Strong
It was the last time she’d see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way.
BETTY SMITH

Grieving Light Poignancy Rivers
You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.
BETTY SMITH

Born Dies Rotten
Well, there’s a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.
BETTY SMITH

Littles Men Wells
Occasionally there is a moment in a person’s life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment.
BETTY SMITH

Humility Understanding Wisdom
Sometimes I think it’s better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be… safe. At least she knows she’s living.
BETTY SMITH

Fighting Pain Thinking
Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
BETTY SMITH

Book Crosswords People
Eyes 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 SMITH

Everything Eyes might Saw Something
I can never give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ I don’t believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable.
BETTY SMITH

Believe Giving Monosyillable Settled
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…
BETTY SMITH

Bitter Dearly Despairing God Loved Quarries Stumbling Weeping
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.
BETTY SMITH

Dream Liars Minute Prayer Sad Something
It’s come at last,” she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn’t enough food in the house you pretended that you weren’t hungry so they could have more.
BETTY SMITH

Children Grief Winter

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Betty Smith Quotes