Betty Smith Quotes

The difference between rich and poor", said Francie, "is that the poor do everything with thier own hands and the rich hire hands to do things.

As long as one can suffer, one is living....live and suffer until life is gone.

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.

Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.

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.

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.

All of us are what we have to be and everyone lives the kind of life its in him to live.

And that's where the whole trouble is. We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand our own selves.

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

I can never give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable.

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.

Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first time or the last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.

She sat in the sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life.

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either first time or last time.

Dear God, ’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.

The something which had been a future was now a present and would become a past.

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

They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering Wes and soft fluttery voices. But they were all made out of thin invisible steel.

They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were all made out of thin invisible steel.

Francie, huddled with other children of her kind, learned more that first day than she realized. She learned of the class system of a great Democracy.