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They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.

Betty Smith

Well’ Francie decided, ‘I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life – and nothing else but’.
BETTY SMITH

Giving Headache Wells
Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
BETTY SMITH

Book Crosswords People
Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
BETTY SMITH

Mother Son Wife
A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn’t tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.
BETTY SMITH

Lie Lying Mean Something Story
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.
BETTY SMITH

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

People Quarrels Two
It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
BETTY SMITH

Children Heartache Lasts Longer
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
I can never give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ I don’t believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable.
BETTY SMITH

Believe Giving Monosyillable Settled
Well, there’s a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.
BETTY SMITH

Littles Men Wells
I get a heavy penance for something I couldn’t help doing. But good or bad, I am a Catholic and I’ll never be anything else.
BETTY SMITH

Anything Else Penance Something
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

Blanket Cold Harm Night Winter
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?
BETTY SMITH

Brooklyn Dream Happen Real
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
I know that’s what people say– you’ll get over it. I’d say it, too. But I know it’s not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won’t forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.
BETTY SMITH

Fall Happiness Love
What must I do, mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?” “The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read.
BETTY SMITH

Different Read Secret Start Writing
I’ll not punish you for having an imagination.
BETTY SMITH

Imagination Person Punish
Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
BETTY SMITH

Cost Forgiveness Inspirational
And always, there was the magic of learning things.
BETTY SMITH

Always Learning Magic Things
From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
BETTY SMITH

Lonely Reading World
People looking up at her–at her smooth pretty vivacious face–had no way of knowing about the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.
BETTY SMITH

Knowing Mind People
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
She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie’s secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father stumbling home drunk. She was all of these things and of something more…
BETTY SMITH

Bitter Dearly Despairing God Loved Quarries Stumbling Weeping
“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
Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence.
BETTY SMITH

Consequences Liars Writing Years
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

Behind Compassion Cruel Rise
Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn’t adopt chemistry as a religion.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Lecture People

They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.

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They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.

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