Betty Smith Quotes

Quotes about:

• Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.

  Betty Smith

  Inspirational, Thanksgiving, Time

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

  56 Copy quote

• Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

  Betty Smith

  Children, Reading, Printed Word

  50 Copy quote

• The world was hers for the reading.

  Betty Smith

  Inspirational, Book, Reading

  39 Copy quote

• I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life--in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful--is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.

  Betty Smith

  Struggle, Love Life, Fullness Of Life

  22 Copy quote

• In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.

  Betty Smith

  Children, Teaching, Character

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

  24 Copy quote

• Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.

  Betty Smith

  Book, People, Crosswords

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, People, Littles

  18 Copy quote

• Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.

  Betty Smith

  Dream, Prayer, Liars

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

  23 Copy quote

• 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 waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, 'I love you. How about getting married?

  Betty Smith

  Flirty, Hate, Love You

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

  17 Copy quote

• Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.

  Betty Smith

  Inspirational, Forgiveness, Cost

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

  13 Copy quote

• It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch.

  Betty Smith

  Disappointment, Children, Teaching

  "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".

  21 Copy quote

• As long as one can suffer, one is living....live and suffer until life is gone.

  Betty Smith

  Long, Suffering, Gone

  4 Copy quote

• Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.

  Betty Smith

  Strength, Strong, Children

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

  54 Copy quote

• A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb.

  Betty Smith

  Heart, Compassion, Two

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

  21 Copy quote

• Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be... safe. At least she knows she's living.

  Betty Smith

  Pain, Fighting, Thinking

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

  7 Copy quote

• 'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.'

  Betty Smith

  Beautiful, Brooklyn, Dear God

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

  9 Copy quote

• They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.

  Betty Smith

  Compassion, Suffering, Anguish

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

  6 Copy quote

• Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life...And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.

  Betty Smith

  Dream, Sleep, Pieces

  13 Copy quote

• And always, there was the magic of learning things.

  Betty Smith

  Magic

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

  7 Copy quote

• People always think that happiness is a faraway thing," thought Francie, "something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone - just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.

  Betty Smith

  Strong, Rain, Coffee

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

  15 Copy quote

• 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 and I've been lonely at camp with hundreds of fellows around. But now I'm not lonely any more.

  Betty Smith

  Girl, Lonely, Party

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

  16 Copy quote

• Intolerance is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror, and heart and soul breaking of the world.

  Betty Smith

  Children, War, Heart

  7 Copy quote

• It was the last time she’d see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day.

  Betty Smith

  Grieving, Light, Rivers

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

  16 Copy quote

• Katie had a fierce desire for survival which made her a fighter. Johnny had a hankering after immortality which made him a useless dreamer. And that was the great difference between these two who loved each other so well.

  Betty Smith

  Two, Differences, Dreamer

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

  6 Copy quote

• Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?" "They're beanies." "They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn." "But I'm not in Brooklyn." "But you're still a Brooklynite." "I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie." "You don't mean that, Carl." "Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie." "Why?" "When in Rome do as the Romans do." "Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly. "This is the silliest conversation.

  Betty Smith

  Mean, Rome, Want

  7 Copy quote

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