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A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

Betty Smith

Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains – a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone – just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.
BETTY SMITH

Book Cigarette Contentment Little Read Strong Things
Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants.
BETTY SMITH

Book Flower Wall
Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’
BETTY SMITH

Beautiful Brooklyn Dear God
From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
BETTY SMITH

Lonely Reading World
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,
BETTY SMITH

Believe Confession God Jesus Mass Once
Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere – be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar.
BETTY SMITH

Liar Ragged Sincere Truthful
She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it
BETTY SMITH

Alive Oil Pain Scalding
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
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
I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you’d give your life to spare them from.
BETTY SMITH

Grief Halfway Innocence Space Walk
It doesn’t take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Long Nothing Writing
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
There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it’s flashing glory.
BETTY SMITH

Dark Sun Water
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

Salary Thinking Usual
It takes a lot of doing to die.
BETTY SMITH

Dies Doing Take
She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.
BETTY SMITH

Combined Fleshly Leather Mass Stamping

A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

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A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

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