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If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is.

Betty Smith

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
Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn’t happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?
BETTY SMITH

Brooklyn Dream Happen Real
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
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
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.
BETTY SMITH

Beautiful Feet Long
You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.
BETTY SMITH

Born Dies Rotten
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
She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination.
BETTY SMITH

Believing Start Starting Ugly World
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
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.
BETTY SMITH

Air Neighborhood Nice Sunday Took
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,
BETTY SMITH

Believe Confession God Jesus Mass Once
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.
BETTY SMITH

Memories Song Thinking
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.
BETTY SMITH

Afternoon Beautiful Lovely Saturday Summer
I’ll not punish you for having an imagination.
BETTY SMITH

Imagination Person Punish
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

Fullness Life Love Struggle
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

If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is.

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If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Betty Smith Quotes