Betty Smith Quotes: 13

• The world was hers for the reading.

  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.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• She had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered 'different.' She did not suffer too much.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.

  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 Saturday 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. . . .

• There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it's flashing glory.

• From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• 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. It was the best advice Francie every got.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself with the vow that when she grew up, she would work hard, save money and buy every single book that she liked.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn't happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

• 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.

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn