The library was a little old shabby place. France 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.

— Betty Smith

There had to be dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory.

— Betty Smith

The sad thing was in the knowing that all their nerve would get them nowhere in the world and that they were lost as all the people in Brooklyn seem lost when the day is nearly over and even though the sun is still bright, it is thin and doesn’t give you warmth when it shines on you.

— Betty Smith

The something which had been a future was now a present and would become a past.

— Betty Smith

The world was hers for the reading.

— Betty Smith

They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus, their suffering was wasted.

— Betty Smith

They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were all made out of thin invisible steel.

— Betty Smith

They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering Was and soft fluttery voices. But they were all made out of thin invisible steel.

— Betty Smith

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...

— Betty Smith

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