“I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“This is the book, then, and the book of Shakespeare. And every day you must read a page of each to your… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“And the sleds! (Or, as the Williamsburg children called them, the sleighs.) There was a child’s dream of heaven come true! A… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“She went to the public school that the three youngest girls attended and in halting English told the teacher that the children… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Before school, there had to be vaccination. That was the law. How it was dreaded! When the health authorities tried to explain… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words! For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Sissy had two great failings. She was a great lover and a great mother. She had so much of tenderness in her,… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Although Katie had this same flair for coloring an incident and Johnny himself lived in a half-dream world, yet they tried to… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“She had born a child but two hours ago. She was so weak that she couldn't lift her head an inch from… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things. — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Now his children are getting old too, like him, and they have children and nobody wants the old man any more and… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
It's come at last", she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“A free country? they asked. You should live so long. What's free about it, they reasoned, when the law forces you to… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Katie stood alone... 'They think this is so good,' he thought. 'They think it's good- the tree they got for nothing and… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“A woman, big with child, sat patiently at the curb in a stiff wooden chair. She sat in the hot sunshine watching… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“You’ll never raise that one,” they told her. “Her color ain’t good. If the good Lord takes her, it will be for… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“She loved the library and was anxious to worship the lady in charge. But the librarian had other things on her mind.… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“But there was no music in the children. Evy took the bull by the horns. They would have to love music whether… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“MOST CHILDREN BROUGHT UP IN BROOKLYN BEFORE THE FIRST World War remember Thanksgiving Day there with a peculiar tenderness. It was the… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“A small child has little idea of the future. Next week is as far ahead as his future stretches and the year… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“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… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Several times that day, the name or thought of Papa had come up. And each time, Francie had felt a flash of tenderness instead… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
As long as one can suffer, one is living....live and suffer until life is gone. — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Sissy told them they were way behind the times; that midwives were things of the past. Besides, she informed them proudly, she had no… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Why, Mrs McGarrity's all right. Mr McGarrity's all right, too. Only I guess they aren't all right to each other.” — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Pipe dreams, he thought to himself, even while he was telling her about his dream winnings. But oh, how wonderful, he thought, if everything… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“She sat in the sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life.” — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
...the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only - the… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
People always think that happiness is a faraway thing … something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up. — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
