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I want to live for something. I don’t want to live to get charity food to give me enough strength to go back to get more charity food.

Betty Smith

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.
BETTY SMITH

Grow Up Papa Tongue
Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
BETTY SMITH

Mother Son Wife
You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.
BETTY SMITH

Born Dies Rotten
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
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
And always, there was the magic of learning things.
BETTY SMITH

Always Learning Magic Things
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
BETTY SMITH

Character Children Teaching
No. I don’t want to need anybody. I want someone to need me … I want someone to need me.
BETTY SMITH

Anybody Needs Someone Want
Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
BETTY SMITH

Honorable Living Lost Sleep Something
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
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?
BETTY SMITH

Flirty Hate Love Make Women
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
“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
Eyes changed after they looked at new things. If in the years to be she were to come back, her new eyes might make everything seem different from the way she saw it now. The way it was now was the way she wanted to remember it.
BETTY SMITH

Everything Eyes might Saw Something
Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
BETTY SMITH

Firsts Looks Perspective
But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.
BETTY SMITH

Needed Needs Parenting

I want to live for something. I don’t want to live to get charity food to give me enough strength to go back to get more charity food.

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I want to live for something. I don’t want to live to get charity food to give me enough strength to go back to get more charity food.

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Popular Authors

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