Quote

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
Clock
Liked
Wrote
Flank
Horse
Fireplaces
Wonderful
Parlor
Thought
Brass
People
Embedded
Fake

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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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Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.
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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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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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Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
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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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'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.'
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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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Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
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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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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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From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.
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Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
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The world was hers for the reading.
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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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It takes a lot of doing to die.
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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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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.
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