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You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten 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

Desk Parlor Sharpened Shining Weekend
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

Beautiful Believe Jesus More Mystery
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
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
Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’
BETTY SMITH

Beautiful Brooklyn Dear God
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
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

Flirty Hate Love Make Women
Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day.
BETTY SMITH

Clearly Everything Tighter Turned
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
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
No. I don’t want to need anybody. I want someone to need me … I want someone to need me.
BETTY SMITH

Anybody Needs Someone Want
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
It is a good thing to learn the truth one’s self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch.
BETTY SMITH

Children Disappointment Teaching
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

Beautiful Thinking Tree
People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get.
BETTY SMITH

Coffee Rain Something Strong
And always, there was the magic of learning things.
BETTY SMITH

Always Learning Magic Things

You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.

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You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.

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