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'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.'
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
Hours
Prayed
Beautiful
Brooklyn
Every
Minute
Something
Hour
Life
Dear
Scene
Minutes
Grows
More quotes by Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself with the vow that when she grew up, she would work hard, save money and buy every single book that she liked.
Betty Smith
Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
Betty Smith
It takes a lot of doing to die.
Betty Smith
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
Betty Smith
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
Betty Smith
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
No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps, and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.... That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
The world was hers for the reading.
Betty Smith
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
Betty Smith
Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.
Betty Smith
They learned no compassion from their own anguish. thus their suffering was wasted.
Betty Smith
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
There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it's flashing glory.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
