But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
And you must tell the child the legends I told you--as my mother told them to me and her mother to her.… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“Mother! Katie remembered. She had called her own mother "mama" until the day she had told her that she was going to… — 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
There is here, what is not in the old country. In spite of hard, unfamiliar things, there is here - hope. In… — 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
“I believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ, and His Mother, Holy Mary. Jesus was a living baby once. He went bare-footed like… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“She looked at the nurse. To Francie, all women were mamas like her own mother and Aunt Sissy and Aunt Evy. She… — 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
“Mama made the coach stop at a barber shop around the corner from their house. 'Go in there,' she told Francie, 'and… — 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
“There are two truths," said Katie finally. "As a mother, I say it would have been a terrible thing for a girl… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“When the children were ready to go to bed, Katie did something very unusual. It was unusual because she was not a… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
“He was a baby once. He must have been sweet and clean and his mother kissed his little pink toes. Maybe when… — 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
