264 Quotes by Betty Smith

Everything was changing. Francie was in a panic. Her world was slipping away from her and what would take its place? Still, what was different anyhow? She read a page from the Bible and Shakespeare every night the same as always. She practiced the piano every day for an hour. She put pennies in the tin-can bank. The junk shop was still there; the stores were all the same. Nothing was changing. She was the one who was changing. She.

Eyes changed after they looked at new things.

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.

Katie had married Johnny because she liked the way he sang and danced and dressed. Womanlike, she set about changing all those things in him after marriage.

The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day.

Debe haber aguas turbias y oscuras para que el sol tenga algo que enmarque su deslumbrante gloria.

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

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.

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 some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret.” “I will read,” promised Katie. “What is a good book?