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 SMITHFrancie 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.
More Betty Smith Quotes
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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.
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Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life…And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
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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.
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Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn’t happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?
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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.
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From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
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I’ll not punish you for having an imagination.
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She told Papa about it. He made her stick out her tongue and he felt her wrist. He shook his head sadly and said, “You have a bad case, a very bad case.” “Of what?” “Growing up.
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She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination.
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If you love someone, you’d rather suffer the pain alone to spare them.
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It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
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Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
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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?
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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.
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Well, there’s a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.
BETTY SMITH