Top 100 Betty Smith Quotes
#1. Well, there's a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.
Betty Smith
#2. She did not hate Miss Garnder anymore. She didn't like her, but she felt sorry for her. Miss Garnder had nothing in all the world excepting a sureness about how right she was.
Betty Smith
#4. Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie "if we could ride in them free?" "No." "Why?" "Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "and we don't want that over here." "Why?" "Because we got democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.
Betty Smith
#5. It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.
Betty Smith
#6. Poor people have a great passion for huge quantities of things.
Betty Smith
#7. And he asked for her whole life as simply as he'd ask for a date. And she promised away her whole life as simply as she'd offer a hand in greeting or farewell.
Betty Smith
#8. Neeley came home and he and Francie were sent out for the weekend meat. This was an important ritual and called for detail instructions by mama.
Betty Smith
#9. ... the fabric of family, the limits of love, the loss of innocence and the birth of knowledge.
Betty Smith
#10. But this tree in the yard-this tree that men chopped down ... this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up it's stump-this tree lived!
It lived! And nothing could destroy it.
Betty Smith
#12. 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
#13. Seems like I'm the most dissatisfied person in the whole world. Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!
Betty Smith
#14. New York! I've always wanted to see it and now I've see it. It's true what they say
it's the most wonderful city in the world.
Betty Smith
#15. Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
Betty Smith
#16. She was the books she read in the library.
Betty Smith
#17. I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life
in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful
is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.
Betty Smith
#19. It was so simple that a flash of astonishment that felt like pain shot through her head. Education! That was it! It was education that made the difference! Education would pull them ut of the grame and dirt.
Betty Smith
#20. 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
#21. 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
#22. She had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered 'different.' She did not suffer too much.
Betty Smith
#23. The difference was that Flossie Gaddis was starved about men and Sissy was healthily hungry about them. And what a difference that made.
Betty Smith
#24. Was that a bad lady, Papa?" she asked eagerly.
No."
But she looked bad."
There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people that are unlucky."
But she was all painted and ... "
She was one who had seen better days.
Betty Smith
#25. But in their secret hearts, each new that it wasn't all right and would never be all right between them again.
Betty Smith
#26. When the children were ready to go to bed, Katie did something very unusual. It was unusual because she was not a demonstrative woman. She held the children close to her and kissed them goodnight.
"From now on" she said ,"I am your mother and your father.
Betty Smith
#27. Francie loved the smell of coffee and the way it was hot. As she ate her bread and meat, she kept one hand curved about the cup enjoying its warmth. From time to time, she'd smell the bitter sweetness of it. That was better than drinking it. At the end of the meal, it went downt the sink.
Betty Smith
#28. If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can't see how beautiful it really is.
Betty Smith
#29. She loved the library and was anxious to worship the lady in charge. But the librarian had other things on her mind. She hated children anyhow.
Betty Smith
#30. Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.
Betty Smith
#31. Why can't they," she thought bitterly, "just give the doll away without saying I am poor and she is rich? Why couldn't they just give it away without all the talking about it?
Betty Smith
#32. 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
#33. Intolerance is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror, and heart and soul breaking of the world.
Betty Smith
#34. And that's where the whole trouble is. We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand our own selves.
Betty Smith
#35. Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.
Betty Smith
#36. The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child's life.
Betty Smith
#37. He talked about democracy and good citizenship and about a good world where everyone did the best he could for the common good of all.
Betty Smith
#38. It meant that she belonged some place. She was a Brooklyn girl with a Brooklyn name and a Brooklyn accent. She didn't want to change into a bit of this and a bit of that.
Betty Smith
#39. Money! Would that make it better for them? Yes, it would make it easy. But no, the money wouldn't be enough ... That means there must be something bigger than money ... An answer came to Katie. It was so simple that a flash of astonishment that felt like a pain shot through her head. Education!
Betty Smith
#40. It there's one thing certain, it's that we all have to get old someday. So get used to the idea as quickly as you can.
Betty Smith
#41. I don't know. I don't know anything, really. I just feel. And when the feeling is strong enough, then I just say I know. But I don't ...
Betty Smith
#42. From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
Betty Smith
#43. A head pain caught her between the eyes at the taking in of such a wonderful sight. It was something to be remembered all her life
Betty Smith
#44. Nothing was changing. She was the one who was changing.
Betty Smith
#45. There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory.
Betty Smith
#46. I need someone," thought Francie desperately. "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 understading must be part of the holding.
Betty Smith
#47. Oh time ... time, pass so that I forget!
Oh time, Great Healer, pass over me and let me forget.
Betty Smith
#48. Johnny was one for taking notions. He'd take a notion that life was too much for him and start drinking heavier to forget it.
Betty Smith
#49. Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
Betty Smith
#50. You won't die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.
Betty Smith
#51. Oh well, this is only temporary. Everything will be better someday. I'll make it better. After all, I'm young yet.
Betty Smith
#52. I can never give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable.
Betty Smith
#53. What is the difference between happiness and contentment?"
"Well, happy is like when somebody gives you a big hunk of something wonderful and it's too big to hold. So you pull off a piece from time to time to hold in your hand. that's being contented. anyway, that's the way i look at it.
Betty Smith
#54. Last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself
Betty Smith
#56. Time, no matter what else it did, passed, and that the school boy of today was the voter of tomorrow.
Betty Smith
#57. A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the boot strap route has two choices. 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 up climb.
Betty Smith
#58. Don't say that. It's not better to die. Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there from the grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong.
Betty Smith
#59. Was that a bad lady, Papa?" Francis asked eagerly.
"No."
"But she looked bad."
"There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people who are unlucky.
Betty Smith
#60. 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
#61. Eyes changed after they looked at new things.
Betty Smith
#62. They lived comfortably and it was a good life they had ... happy and full of small adventures.
And they were so young and loved each other so much.
Betty Smith
#63. I think it's good that people like us can waste something once in a while and get the feeling of how it would be to have lots of money and not have to worry about scrounging.
Betty Smith
#64. It's come at last", she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
Betty Smith
#66. They were in Julius Caesar now and the stage direction "Alarum" confused Katie. She thought it had something to do with fire engines and whenever she came to that word, she shouted out "clang-clang." The children thought it was wonderful.
Betty Smith
#67. Mary was convinced that because of some sin she had unwittingly committed in her life, she was mated with the devil himself. She really believed this because her husband told her so. "I am the devil himself," he told her frequently.
Betty Smith
#68. She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart; the heart that was breaking - was aching - was dancing -was heavy laden - that leaped for joy - that was heavy in sorrow - that turned over - that stood still. She really believed the heart actually did those things.
Betty Smith
#69. And she doesn't have to worry about me, either. I don't need to drink to get drunk. I can get drunk on things like the tulip - and this night.
Betty Smith
#70. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.
Betty Smith
#71. I'll not punish you for having an imagination.
Betty Smith
#72. You must teach the child of the signs that come to the women of our family when there is trouble and death to be.
Betty Smith
#73. After Election, the politicians forgot their promises and enjoyed an earned rest until New Year, when they started work on the next Election.
Betty Smith
#74. Education! That was it! It was education that made the difference! Education would pull them out of the grime and dirt.
Betty Smith
#75. Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
Betty Smith
#76. And Francie whispered yeah in agreement. She was proud of that smell. It let her know that nearby was a waterway, which, dirty though it was, joined a river that flowed out to the sea. To her, the stupendous stench suggested far-sailing ships and adventure and she was pleased with the smell.
Betty Smith
#77. Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
Betty Smith
#78. The parents were too American, too aware of the rights granted them by their Constitution to accept injustices meekly. They could not be bulldozed and exploited as could the immigrants and the second-generation Americans.
Betty Smith
#79. Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
Betty Smith
#80. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
Betty Smith
#81. 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.
Betty Smith
#82. If I can fix every detail of this time in my mind, I can keep this moment always.
Betty Smith
#83. 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
#84. 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
#85. 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
#86. They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.
Betty Smith
#87. Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be ... safe. At least she knows she's living.
Betty Smith
#88. When night draws back the curtain,
And pins it with a star,
Remember you are still my friend,
Though you may wander far
Betty Smith
#89. We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand ourselves.
Betty Smith
#90. 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.
Betty Smith
#91. Now my wandering days are over. It will be bliss to settle down. Bliss. There's a word, now. Bliss to love and to be loved.
Betty Smith
#92. You married him. There was something about him that caught your heart. Hang on to that and forget the rest.
Betty Smith
#93. All my life I've been lonely. I've been lonely at crowded parties. I've been lonely in the middle of kissing a girl and I've been lonely at camp with hundreds of fellows around. But now I'm not lonely any more.
Betty Smith
#94. A woman, big with child, sat patiently at the curb in a stiff wooden chair. She sat in the hot sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life.
Betty Smith
#95. Laurie's going to have a mighty easy life all right.
Annie Laurie McShane! She'll never have the hard times we had, will she?
No. And she'll never have the fun we had, either.
"Gosh! We did have fun, didn't we, Neeley?"
Yeah!
Poor Laurie, said Francie pityingly.
Betty Smith
#96. Maybe," thought Francie, "she doesn't love me as much as she loves Neeley. But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved.
Betty Smith
#97. Oi! By me is so big the mouth, so my foot always goes in.
Betty Smith
#98. Well' Francie decided, 'I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life - and nothing else but'.
Betty Smith
#99. Katie had married Johnny because she liked the way he sang and danced and dressed. Womanlike, she set about changing all those things in him after marriage.
Betty Smith
#100. As long as one can suffer, one is living ... live and suffer until life is gone.
Betty Smith
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