Betty Smith Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• 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

• It takes a lot of doing to die.

  Betty Smith

  Dies

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Pain, Simple, Differences

  4 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• The library was a little old shaby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the cmbined 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

  Beautiful, Past, Doors

  Betty Smith (2009). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, p.22, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  School, Other Worlds, Unattainable

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

  4 Copy quote

• Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.

  Betty Smith

  Suffering, Rich, Persons

  4 Copy quote

• You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone's yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district. The tree knew. It came there first. Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up into flats, feather beds were pushed out on the window sills to air and the Tree of Heaven flourished. That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.

  Betty Smith

  Nice, Sunday, Air

  Betty Smith (2009). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, p.6, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Understanding

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

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Thinking, Tree

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

  4 Copy quote

• Well' Francie decided, 'I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life - and nothing else but'.

  Betty Smith

  Giving, Headache, Wells

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

  4 Copy quote

• I'll not punish you for having an imagination.

  Betty Smith

  Imagination

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

  5 Copy quote

• She went out and took a last long look at the shabby little library. She knew she would never see it again. 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

  Eye, Years, Long

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

  4 Copy quote

• There is here, what is not in the old country. In spite of hard, unfamiliar things, there is here - hope. In the old country, a man can be no more than his father, providing he works hard. If his father was a carpenter, he may be a carpenter. He many not be a teacher or a priest. He may rise - but only to his father's state. In the old country, a man is given to the past. Here he belongs to the future. In this land, he may be what he will, if he has the good heart and the way of working honestly at the right things.

  Betty Smith

  Country, Teacher, Father

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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Heart, Dancing

  4 Copy quote

• Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.

  Betty Smith

  Book, Mood, Intimate Friends

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

  4 Copy quote

• Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be a Rommely woman even though her name was Nolan. They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.

  Betty Smith

  Daughter, Mother, Growing Up

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

  7 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

• 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

• 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

• Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard. 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. 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

  Mother, Strong, Children

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

  4 Copy quote

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