Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books...books..books."
44 Quotes
"Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books...books..books."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"She sat in the sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Her time has come," answered Miss Lizzie. "That's why I didn't marry Harvey - long ago when he asked me. I was afraid of 'that'. So afraid." "I don't know," Miss Lizzie said. "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 just to be safe." She waited until the next scream died away. "At least she knows she's living."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, “Goodbye—God bless you."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"It was one of the links between the ground-down poor and the wasteful rich. The girl felt that even if she had less than anybody in Williamsburg, somehow she had more. She was richer because she had something to waste."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"She was a blameless sinless woman, yet she understood who how it was with people who sinned. Inflexibly rigid in her own moral conduct, she condoned weaknesses in others. She revered God and loved Jesus, but she understood why people often turned away from these Two."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Francie always remembered what that 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."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"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."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed."That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child, do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"It is good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. In teaching your child do not forget that suffering is good too. It makes a person rich in character."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "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 by 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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Oh, and you must not forget the Kris Kringle. The child must believe in him until she reaches the age of six." I KNOW there is not Santa Claus."Yet you must teach the child that these things are so."Why? When I, myself, do not believe"Because...the child must have a valuable things which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which [to] 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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
"But she didn't want to recall things. She wanted to live things — or as a compromise, relive rather than reminisce."
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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