Betty Smith Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Well, there's a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.

  Betty Smith

  Men, Littles, Wells

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  7 Copy quote

• Francie 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. "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, Feet, Long

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Feel Good, Way

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Self, Too Much, Trouble

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Tree, Trying

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  10 Copy quote

• In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got.

  Betty Smith

  Writing, Thinking, Should Have

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  4 Copy quote

• Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?

  Betty Smith

  Mother, Son, Wife

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  4 Copy quote

• Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. 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

  Wall, Flower, Book

  Betty Smith (2009). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, p.19, Harper Collins

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  6 Copy quote

• You won't die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.

  Betty Smith

  Rotten, Born, Dies

  Betty Smith (2009). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, p.40, Harper Collins

  7 Copy quote

• The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child's life.

  Betty Smith

  Children, Cities, Important

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Love, Happiness, Fall

  9 Copy quote

• She was surprised at how tiny it seemed now. She supposed the school was just as big as it had ever been only her eyes had grown used to looking at bigger things.

  Betty Smith

  School, Eye, Tiny

  "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".

  4 Copy quote

• It takes a lot of doing to die.

  Betty Smith

  Dies

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Firsts, Lectures

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Dream, Real, Brooklyn

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  7 Copy quote

• A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

  Betty Smith

  Children, Want, Never Forget

  4 Copy quote

• No. I don't want to need anybody. I want someone to need me ... I want someone to need me.

  Betty Smith

  Needs, Want

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  4 Copy quote

• I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.

  Betty Smith

  Fake People, Horse, Wonderful

  89 Copy quote

• Occasionally there is a moment in a person's life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment. For a split second he comes into a kind of cosmic understanding. For a trembling breath of time he knows all there is to know. He is loaned the gift the poet yearned for - seeing himself as others see him.

  Betty Smith

  Wisdom, Humility, Understanding

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  New York, Cities, World

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  4 Copy quote

• She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. 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...It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.

  Betty Smith

  Brother, Father, Flower

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  Betty Smith

  Mother, Country, Children

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  4 Copy quote

• Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!

  Betty Smith

  Wish, Wonderful, Young

  BETTY SMITH (1947). “A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN MAGGIE NOW”

  4 Copy quote

• Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber as a word was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.

  Betty Smith

  Beautiful, Summer, New York

  Betty Smith (2009). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, p.5, Harper Collins

  53 Copy quote

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