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 SMITHI wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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Occasionally there is a moment in a person’s life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment.
BETTY SMITH -
Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’
BETTY SMITH -
I’ll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Saturday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books . . . books . . . books. . . .
BETTY SMITH -
It’s a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No, I don’t want to understand it all. It’s beautiful because it’s always a mystery.
BETTY SMITH -
People looking up at her–at her smooth pretty vivacious face–had no way of knowing about the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.
BETTY SMITH -
Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!
BETTY SMITH -
Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.
BETTY SMITH -
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 -
Well’ Francie decided, ‘I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life – and nothing else but’.
BETTY SMITH -
Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
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From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.
BETTY SMITH -
It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
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And always, there was the magic of learning things.
BETTY SMITH -
How much do they be paying you?” he asked mellowly. “The usual salary. A little more than they think I’m worth and a little less than I think I’m worth.
BETTY SMITH -
I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life’s too short. If you ever find a man you love, don’t waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, ‘I love you. How about getting married?
BETTY SMITH