“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.
BETTY SMITHEvery day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret
More Betty Smith Quotes
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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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People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get.
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…the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only – the something different from anyone else in the two families.
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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.
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It takes a lot of doing to die.
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We’ll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory…let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.
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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.
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What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
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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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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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Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret
BETTY SMITH -
Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
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Of course, I didn’t ask to be born Catholic, no more than I asked to be born American. But I’m glad it turned out that I’m both these things.
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As long as one can suffer, one is living….live and suffer until life is gone.
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I’ll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Saturday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books . . . books . . . books. . . .
BETTY SMITH






