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.

— Betty Smith

Because," explained Mary Rommel 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

Because," explained Mary Rommel 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. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.

— Betty Smith

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

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, France, was the dreamer?

— Betty Smith

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

— Betty Smith

But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.

— Betty Smith

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.

— Betty Smith

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

— Betty Smith

Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well-dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.

— Betty Smith