Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.'
Betty Smith
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Grows
Hours
Prayed
Beautiful
Brooklyn
Every
Minute
Something
Hour
Life
Dear
Scene
Minutes
More quotes by 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
Because the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination.
Betty Smith
Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.
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
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
Betty Smith
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.
Betty Smith
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.
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
It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.
Betty Smith
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
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
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
Well, there's a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.
Betty Smith
Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.
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
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
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
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
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
Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.
Betty Smith
