Betty Smith Quotes

“I will not speak falsely and say to you: 'Do not grieve for me when I go.' I have loved my children and tried to be a good mother and it is right that my children grieve for me. But let your grief be gentle and brief. And let resignation creep into it. Know that I shall be happy. I shall see face to face the great saints I have loved all my life.”

— 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

“Katie heard the story. 'It's come at last,' she thought, 'the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them ... Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them.”

— Betty Smith

This is the book, then , and the book of Shakespeare. And every day you must read a page of each to your child
even though you yourself do not understand what is written down and cannot sound the words properly. You must do this that the child will grow up knowing of what is great
knowing that these tenements of Williamsburg are not the whole world."
Katie: " The Protestant Bible and Shakespeare.

— Betty Smith

“Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.”

— Betty Smith

“Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be ... safe. At least she knows she's living.”

— 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

And always, there was the magic of learning things.

— Betty Smith

“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

“A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the boot strap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel up climb.”

— Betty Smith

“The sad thing was in the knowing that all their nerve would get them nowhere in the world and that they were lost as all the people in Brooklyn seem lost when the day is nearly over and even though the sun is still bright, it is thin and doesn't give you warmth when it shines on you.”

— Betty Smith

“If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.”

— Betty Smith

“Seems like I'm the most dissatisfied person in the whole world. Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!”

— 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

“Francie always remembered what the kind teacher told her. 'You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you're making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. 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 ever got. Truth and fancy were so mixed up in her mind
as they are in the mind of every lonely child
that she didn't know which was which.”

— Betty Smith

“There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury. Mama made a big potful each morning and reheated it for dinner and supper and it got stronger as the day wore on. It was an awful lot of water and very little coffee but mama put a lump of chicory in it which made it taste strong and bitter. Each one was allowed three cups a day with milk. Other times you could help yourself to a cup of black coffee anytime you felt like it. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.
Neeley and Francie loved coffee but seldom drank it. Today, as usual, Neeley let his coffee stand black and ate his condensed milk spread on bread. He sipped a little of the black coffee for the sake of formality. Mama poured out Francie's coffee and put the milk in it even though she knew that the child wouldn't drink it.”

— Betty Smith

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.

— Betty Smith

From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.

— Betty Smith

“New York! I've always wanted to see it and now I've see it. It's true what they say
it's the most wonderful city in the world.”

— Betty Smith

She loved books. She loved them with her senses and her intellect. They way they looked and smelled; the way they felt in her hands; the way the pages seemed to murmur as she turned them. Everything there is in the world, she thought, is in books.

— Betty Smith

“You won't die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.”

— Betty Smith

It's a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No, I don't want to understand it all. It's beautiful because it's always a mystery. Sometimes I say I don't believe in God and Jesus and Mary. I'm a bad Catholic because I miss mass once in a while and I grumble when, at confession, I get a heavy penance for something I couldn't help doing. But good or bad, I am a Catholic and I'll never be anything else.
Of course, I didn't ask to be born Catholic, no more than I asked to be born American. But I'm glad it turned out that I'm both these things.

— Betty Smith

“I'll not punish you for having an imagination.”

— 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

“What is the difference between happiness and contentment?"
"Well, happy is like when somebody gives you a big hunk of something wonderful and it's too big to hold. So you pull off a piece from time to time to hold in your hand. that's being contented. anyway, that's the way i look at it.”

— Betty Smith

“May I have this damaged bunch for two cents? Speak strongly and it shall be yours for two cents. That is a saved penny that you put in the star bank ... Suffer the cold for an hour. Put a shawl around you. Sai, I am cold because I am saving to buy land. That hour will save you three cents' worth of coal ... When you are alone at night, do not light the lamp. Sit in the darkness and dream awhile. Reckon out how much oil you saved and put its value in pennies in the bank. The money will grow. Someday there will be fifty dollars and somewhere on this long island is a piece of land that you may buy for that money.”

— Betty Smith

“She grieved a while and her grief changed her.”

— Betty Smith

The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child's life.

— Betty Smith

“You know, a lot of people would think that these stories that you're making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. 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.”

— Betty Smith

“Occasionally there is a moment in a person's life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment. For a split second he comes into a kind of cosmic understanding. For a trembling breath of time he knows all there is to know. He is loaned the gift the poet yearned for - seeing himself as others see him.”

— Betty Smith

“Laurie's going to have a mighty easy life all right.
Annie Laurie McShane! She'll never have the hard times we had, will she?
No. And she'll never have the fun we had, either.
"Gosh! We did have fun, didn't we, Neeley?"
Yeah!
Poor Laurie, said Francie pityingly.”

— Betty Smith

“Spring came early that year and the sweet warm nights made her restless. She walked up and down the streets and through the park. And wherever she went, she saw a boy and a girl together; walking arm-in-arm, sitting on a park bench with their arms around each other, standing closely and in silence in a vestibule. Everyone in the world but Francie had a sweetheart or a friend. She seemed to be the only lonely one in Brooklyn.”

— Betty Smith

“Francie thought that all the books in the world were in that library and she had a plan about reading all the books in the world.”

— Betty Smith

“Was that a bad lady, Papa?" she asked eagerly.
No."
But she looked bad."
There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people that are unlucky."
But she was all painted and ... "
She was one who had seen better days.”

— Betty Smith

“Money! Would that make it better for them? Yes, it would make it easy. But no, the money wouldn't be enough ... That means there must be something bigger than money ... An answer came to Katie. It was so simple that a flash of astonishment that felt like a pain shot through her head. Education!”

— Betty Smith

“Our family used to be like this strong cup," thought Francie. "It was whole and sound and held things well. When papa died, the first crack came. And this fight tonight made another crack. Soon there will be so many cracks that the cup will break and we'll all be pieces instead of the whole thing together. I don't want this to happen, yet I'm deliberately making a deep crack.”

— Betty Smith

“She adapted herself to the split-second rhythm of the New Yorker going to and from work. Getting to the office was a nervous ordeal. If she arrived one minute before nine, she was a free person. If she arrived one minute after, she worried because that made her the logical scapegoat of the boss if he happened to be in a bad mood that day.”

— Betty Smith

“But she didn't want to recall things. She wanted to live things - or as a compromise, relive rather than reminisce.”

— Betty Smith

“Francie said nothing more. Katie knew that she was letting them down. But she couldn't help it, she just couldn't help it. Yes, she should go with them to lend the comfort and authority of her presence but she knew she couldn't stand the ordeal. Yet, they had to be vaccinated. Her being with them or somewhere else couldn't take that fact away. So why shouldn't one of the three be spared? Besides, she said to her conscience, it's a hard and bitter world. They've got to live in it. Let them get hardened young to take care of themselves.”

— Betty Smith

“She loved the library and was anxious to worship the lady in charge. But the librarian had other things on her mind. She hated children anyhow.”

— Betty Smith

Tell the truth and write the story.

— Betty Smith

“Maybe," thought Francie, "she doesn't love me as much as she loves Neeley. But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved.”

— Betty Smith

“Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie "if we could ride in them free?" "No." "Why?" "Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "and we don't want that over here." "Why?" "Because we got democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.”

— Betty Smith

“Education! That was it! It was education that made the difference! Education would pull them out of the grime and dirt.”

— Betty Smith

“She was the books she read in the library.”

— Betty Smith

“An eleven-year-old girl sitting on this fire escape could imagine that she was living in a tree.”

— Betty Smith

... the fabric of family, the limits of love, the loss of innocence and the birth of knowledge.

— Betty Smith

“Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?”

— Betty Smith

“A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.”

— Betty Smith

No. I don't want to need anybody. I want someone to need me ... I want someone to need me.

— Betty Smith