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 SMITHThere had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it’s flashing glory.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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This could be a whole life,” she thought. “You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this.
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.
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People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get.
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Because 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.
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Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence.
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Sometimes I say I don’t believe in God and Jesus and Mary. I’m a bad Catholic because I miss mass once in a while and I grumble when, at confession,
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Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
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And you must tell the child the legends I told you – as my mother told them to me and her mother to her. You must tell the fairy tales of the old country. You must tell of those not of the earth who live forever in the hearts of the people.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.
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Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm.
BETTY SMITH