“Education! That was it! It was education that made the difference! Education would pull them out of the grime and dirt.” — Betty Smith Dirt Copy Share Image
I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life's too short. If you ever find a man you love, don't… — Betty Smith Don-t-waste-time Copy Share Image
She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to… — Betty Smith Able Copy Share Image
All my life I've been lonely. I've been lonely at crowded parties. I've been lonely in the middle of kissing a girl… — Betty Smith Camps Copy Share Image
I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its… — Betty Smith Brass 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 Children Copy Share Image
“In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think… — Betty Smith Future Copy Share Image
“But she didn't want to recall things. She wanted to live things — or as a compromise, relive rather than reminisce.” — Betty Smith Heart Copy Share Image
“What is the difference between happiness and contentment?" “Well, happy is like when somebody gives you a big hunk of something wonderful… — Betty Smith Happiness Copy Share Image
“If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful,” said Katie. “But because there… — Betty Smith Children 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… — Betty Smith Born Copy Share Image
In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think… — Betty Smith Advice 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 Adversity Copy Share Image
It was the last time she’d see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death… — Betty Smith Death Copy Share Image
“you’ll always come out all right – no matter what. You’re like me that way.’ And that’s where the whole trouble is,”… — Betty Smith Selves Copy Share Image
No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and… — Betty Smith Cement 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 Better way 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 Compassion Copy Share Image
“She liked numbers and sums. She devised a game in which each number was a family member and the “answer” made a… — Betty Smith Baby boy 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 Children Copy Share Image
“When Francie brought a ticket and a dime back and pushed them across the counter, he gave her the wrapped shirt and… — Betty Smith Magnifying glass 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 Children 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 Agape 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 Beautiful flowers 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 Children Copy Share Image
“One day they’re babies in buggies and the next day they’re in here taking picks. Kids grow up quick in this neighborhood.” — Betty Smith Child Copy Share Image
“Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her,… — Betty Smith Inner self Copy Share Image
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… — Betty Smith Cities Copy Share Image
“Neeley, if you had to die, wouldn't it be wonderful to die now—while you believed that everything was perfect, the way this… — Betty Smith Copy Share Image
She was surprised at how tiny it seemed now. She supposed the school was just as big as it had ever been… — Betty Smith Bigger Copy Share Image
Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as… — Betty Smith Chemistry Copy Share Image
“He talked about democracy and good citizenship and about a good world where everyone did the best he could for the common… — Betty Smith Common good Copy Share Image
I never listen to what people tell me and I can't read. The only way I know what is right and wrong… — Betty Smith Feel good Copy Share Image
But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself… — Betty Smith Book Copy Share Image
People always think that happiness is a faraway thing … something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make… — Betty Smith Complicated Copy Share Image
“There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory. a” — Betty Smith Dark Copy Share Image
“The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed." "That… — Betty Smith Children Copy Share Image
“What had granma Mary Rommely said? "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or… — Betty Smith Last time Copy Share Image
“Oh well, this is only temporary. Everything will be better someday. I'll make it better. After all, I'm young yet.” — Betty Smith Oh well Copy Share Image
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… — Betty Smith Self Copy Share Image
