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I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.
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
People
Embedded
Fake
Clock
Liked
Wrote
Flank
Horse
Fireplaces
Wonderful
Parlor
Thought
Brass
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People looking up at her--at her smooth pretty vivacious face--had no way of knowing about the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.
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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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There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.
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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.
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I never listen to what people tell me and I can't read. The only way I know what is right and wrong is the way I feel about things. If I feel bad, it's wrong. If I feel good, it's right.
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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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It meant that she belonged some place. She was a Brooklyn girl with a Brooklyn name and a Brooklyn accent. She didn't want to change into a bit of this and a bit of that.
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She had had the pain it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it
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Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
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She was surprised at how tiny it seemed now. She supposed the school was just as big as it had ever been only her eyes had grown used to looking at bigger things.
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She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart the heart that was breaking - was aching - was dancing -was heavy laden - that leaped for joy - that was heavy in sorrow - that turned over - that stood still. She really believed the heart actually did those things.
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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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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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Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
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And you must tell the child the legends I told you - as my mother told them to me and her mother to her. You must tell the fairy tales of the old country. You must tell of those not of the earth who live forever in the hearts of the people.
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There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it's flashing glory.
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How much do they be paying you? he asked mellowly. The usual salary. A little more than they think I'm worth and a little less than I think I'm worth.
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Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
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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.
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The world was hers for the reading.
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