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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
Beautiful
Brooklyn
Every
Minute
Something
Hour
Life
Dear
Scene
Minutes
Grows
Hours
Prayed
More quotes by Betty Smith
The world was hers for the reading.
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Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
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Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time.
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As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed.
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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.
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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.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
Betty Smith
From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
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.
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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
Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?
Betty Smith
It's come at last, she thought, the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.
Betty Smith
Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.
Betty Smith
Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character.
Betty Smith
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
