Betty Smith Quotes

But there was no music in the children. Evy took the bull by the horns. They would have to love music whether they wanted to or not. If talent wasn’t born in them, maybe it could be shoved in at so mu...

Do you hear that, Francie? You're in college! 'oh gosh, I feel sick.

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

Francie of course became an outsider shunned by all because of her stench. But she had grown accostumed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and being considered different. She did not suffe...

Growing up ruins everything

Isn't hot coffee a wonderful thing? How did people get along before it was invented?

I’ll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Saturday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a f...

The difference was that Flossie Gaddis was starved about men and Sissy was healthily hungry about them. And what a difference that made.

And he asked for her whole life as simply as he'd ask for a date. And she promised away her whole life as simply as she'd offer a hand in greeting or farewell.

And that’s where the whole trouble is, thought Francie. We’re too much alike to understand each other because we don’t even understand our own selves. Papa and I were two different persons and we unde...

Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.

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...

Growing up spoiled a lot of things. It spoiled the nice game they had when there was nothing to eat in the house. When money gave out and food ran low, Katie and the children pretended they were explo...

He’d get lost if he tried to find his way back to New York from her neighborhood. Brooklyn was tricky that way. You had to live there in order to find your way about.

I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.

I'll not punish you for having an imagination.

I'm glad I got you!

It doesn't take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.

She wept when they gave birth to daughters, knowing that to be born a woman meant a life of humble hardship.

That 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...