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If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can't see how beautiful it really is.

Betty Smith

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Betty Smith
Age: 75 †
Born: 1896
Born: December 15
Died: 1972
Died: January 17
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Elisabeth Lillian Wehner
Many
Really
Would
Think
Thinking
Like
World
Tree
Beautiful

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Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
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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.
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Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber as a word was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.
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In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got.
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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.
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But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.
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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.
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I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.
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Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
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I want to live for something. I don't want to live to get charity food to give me enough strength to go back to get more charity food.
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Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
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Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
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Someday you'll remember what I said and you'll thank me for it. Francie wished adults would stop telling her that. Already the load of thanks in the future was weighing her down. She figured she'd have to spend the best years of her womanhood hunting up people to tell them that they were right and to thank them.
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Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.
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This could be a whole life, she thought. You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this.
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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.
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They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.
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It's come at last, she thought, the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
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Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.
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In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
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