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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.

Betty Smith

Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
BETTY SMITH

People Quarrels Two
Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!
BETTY SMITH

Wish Wonderful Young
I never listen to what people tell me and I can’t read. The only way I know what is right and wrong is the way I feel about things. If I feel bad, it’s wrong. If I feel good, it’s right.
BETTY SMITH

Feel Good People Way
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
BETTY SMITH

Character Children Teaching
It was the last time she’d see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way.
BETTY SMITH

Grieving Light Poignancy Rivers
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
It’s come at last,” she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn’t enough food in the house you pretended that you weren’t hungry so they could have more.
BETTY SMITH

Children Grief Winter
Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Looks Perspective
But this tree in the yard-this tree that men chopped down…this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up it’s stump-this tree lived! It lived! And nothing could destroy it.
BETTY SMITH

Men Tree Trying
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

Book Lonely Reading
As long as one can suffer, one is living….live and suffer until life is gone.
BETTY SMITH

Gone Long Suffering
“Beautiful legs, then, is the secret of being a mistriss,” concluded Francie. She looked down at her own long thin legs. “I’ll never make it, I guess.” Sighing , she resigned herself to a sinless life.
BETTY SMITH

Beautiful Herself Legs Looked Resigned
As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed.
BETTY SMITH

Book Candy Girl House Shadow
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 need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.
BETTY SMITH

Alone Being Loneliness Understanding
From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
BETTY SMITH

Lonely Reading World

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Betty Smith Quotes