Betty Smith
Betty Smith
Betty Smith, née Elisabeth Wehner, was an American author...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth15 December 1896
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
knowing people mind
People looking up at her--at her smooth pretty vivacious face--had no way of knowing about the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.
giving headache wells
Well' Francie decided, 'I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life - and nothing else but'.
country teacher father
There is here, what is not in the old country. In spite of hard, unfamiliar things, there is here - hope. In the old country, a man can be no more than his father, providing he works hard. If his father was a carpenter, he may be a carpenter. He many not be a teacher or a priest. He may rise - but only to his father's state. In the old country, a man is given to the past. Here he belongs to the future. In this land, he may be what he will, if he has the good heart and the way of working honestly at the right things.
mother daughter growing-up
Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be a Rommely woman even though her name was Nolan. They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.
needs want
No. I don't want to need anybody. I want someone to need me ... I want someone to need me.
brother father flower
She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father stumbling home drunk. She was all of these things and of something more...It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.
sleep eight people
This could be a whole life," she thought. "You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this...
dark water sun
There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background it's flashing glory.
people firsts lectures
Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.
love happiness fall
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.
song memories thinking
We'll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory...let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.
new-york cities world
New York! I've always wanted to see it and now I've see it. It's true what they say-- it's the most wonderful city in the world.
fake-people horse wonderful
I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.
pain oil able
She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it