The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child’s life.
BETTY SMITHI 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.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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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.
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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.
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The world was hers for the reading.
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Of course, I didn’t ask to be born Catholic, no more than I asked to be born American. But I’m glad it turned out that I’m both these things.
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Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb.
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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.
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I can never give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ I don’t believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable.
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She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart; the heart that was breaking – was aching – was dancing -was heavy laden – that leaped for joy – that was heavy in sorrow – that turned over – that stood still. She really believed the heart actually did those things.
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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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Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!
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It takes a lot of doing to die.
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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
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What must I do, mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?” “The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read.
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Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber as a word was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg Brooklyn.
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Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
BETTY SMITH