“You’ll never raise that one,” they told her. “Her color ain’t good. If the good Lord takes her, it will be for the best. What good is a sickly baby in a poor family? There is too many children on… — 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 a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower… — Betty Smith Copy Share
“Several times that day, the name or thought of Papa had come up. And each time, Francie had felt a flash of tenderness instead of the old stab of pain. "Am I forgetting him?" she thought. "In time to come, will it be hard to remember anything about him? I guess it's like Granma Mary Rommely says: 'With time, passes… — Betty Smith Copy Share
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 say in the matter. Her Steve insisted on the doctor and the hospital. And that wasn’t all. Sissy was going to have a Jewish doctor! “Why, Sissy? Why?” asked her shocked sisters. “Because Jewish doctors are… — Betty Smith Copy Share
“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 with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle...I am not a happy man. I got a wife and… — Betty Smith Copy Share
“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
