Betty Smith Quotes

They were in Julius Caesar now and the stage direction Alarum confused Katie. She thought it had something to do with fire engines and whenever she came to that word, she shouted out clang-clang. The...

Was that a bad lady, Papa? Francis asked eagerly.No.But she looked bad.There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people who are unlucky.

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.

We'll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory...let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.

What must I do, Mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start? The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read. Every day you must read one page from so...

You betcha they’d live, thought Francie grimly. It takes a lot of doing to die.

You'll never raise that one,' they told her. 'Her color ain't good. If the good Lord takes her, it will be for the best.'...Don't say that,' Katie held her baby tightly. 'It's not better to die. Who w...

[t]he 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 . She must start out by believing...

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..

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...

Although Katie had this same flair for coloring an incident and Johnny himself lived in a half-dream world, yet they tried to squelch these things in their child. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe t...

An answer came to Katie. It was so simple that a flash of astonishment that felt like pain shot through her head. Education! That was it! It was education that made the difference! Education would pul...

And Francie whispered yeah in agreement. She was proud of that smell. It let her know that nearby was a waterway, which, dirty though it was, joined a river that flowed out to the sea. To her, the stu...

And always, there was the magic of learning things.

And she doesn’t have to worry about me, either. I don’t need to drink to get drunk. I can get drunk on things like the tulip—and this night.

And the child, Francie Nolan, was of all the Rommelys and all the Nolans. She had the violent weaknesses and passion for beauty of the shanty Nolans. She was a mosaic of her grandmother Rommely's myst...

And the sleds! (Or, as the Williamsburg children called them, the sleighs.) There was a child’s dream of heaven come true! A new sled with a flower someone had dreamed up painted on it—a deep blue flo...

Arriving at the store, she walked up and down the aisles handling any object her fancy favored. What a wonderful feeling to pick something up, hold it for a moment, feel its contour, run her hand over...

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...

But I saved it for you because I know your mama likes tongue and I like your mama. You