A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

“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.

A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb.

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

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

And knowing, did he die in the trying to be a better man?

I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.”

But in their secret hearts, each knew that it wasn’t all right and would never be all right between them again.

It’s beautiful because it’s always a mystery,

“I think that’s carrying mother love a little too far.”

“No! I don’t want to need anybody. I want someone to need me…I want someone to need me.”

“To 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.”