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 SMITHBecause the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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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.
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 -
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.
BETTY SMITH -
They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.
BETTY SMITH -
But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.
BETTY SMITH -
“I wouldn’t want that to get around, Annie.” “You don’t mean that, Carl.” “Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie.” “Why?” “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” “Do they call them beanies in Rome?” she asked artlessly. “This is the silliest conversation.
BETTY SMITH -
A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.
BETTY SMITH -
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 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 -
In the cold of a winter’s night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn’t be cold. You’d kill anyone who tried to harm the.
BETTY SMITH -
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 -
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 -
Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants.
BETTY SMITH -
As long as one can suffer, one is living….live and suffer until life is gone.
BETTY SMITH -
The world was hers for the reading.
BETTY SMITH