A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Quotes

“They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“That label is like an ornament,” he explained, “like a rose that you wear. Look at my Waiters’ Union button.” The pale green-and-white button was fastened in his lapel. He polished it with his sleeve. “Before I joined the Union the bosses paid me what they felt like. Sometimes they paid me nothing. The tips, they said, would take care of me. Some places even charged me for the privilege of working. The tips were so big, they said, that they could sell the waiting concession. Then I joined the Union. Your mother shouldn’t begrudge the dues. The Union gets me jobs where the boss has to pay me certain wages, regardless of tips. All trades should be unionized.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“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 staggering home drunk.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Remember this: Someone has to lose and it’s just as apt to be you as the other fellow.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“The regimented routine of many children, all doing the same thing at once, gave her a feeling of safety. She felt that she was a definite part of something, part of a community gathered under a leader for the one purpose.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Francie was glad for Saturday and hated to end it by going to sleep.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you’d give your life to spare them.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Eyes changed after they looked at new things. If in the years to be she were to come back, her new eyes might make everything seem different from the way she saw it now. The way it was now was the way she wanted to remember it.”
― Betty Smith, 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.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Mama, where did we come from?” “God gave you to me.” The Catholic children were willing to accept that but the next question was a sticker. “How did God get us to you?” “I can’t explain that because I’d have to use a lot of big words that you wouldn’t understand.” “Say the big words and see if we understand them.” “If you understood them, I wouldn’t have to tell you.” “Say it in some kind of words. Tell us how babies get here.” “No, you’re too little yet. If I told you, you’d go around telling all the other children what you know and their mothers would come up here and say I was a dirty lady and there would be fights.” “Well, tell us why girls are different from boys.” Mama thought for a while. “The main difference is that a little girl sits down when she goes to the bathroom and a little boy stands up.” “But Mama,” said Francie. “I stand up when I’m afraid in that dark toilet.” “And I,” confessed little Neeley, “sit down when…” Mama interrupted. “Well, there’s a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.” That ended the discussion because it was so puzzling to the children that they decided to go no further with it.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Why can't they," she thought bitterly, "just give the doll away without saying I am poor and she is rich? Why couldn't they just give it away without all the talking about it?”
― Betty Smith, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

“Dear God, 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, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

“The world was hers for the reading.”
― Betty Smith, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

“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, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Katie had a fierce desire for survival which made her a fighter. Johnny had a hankering after immortality which made him a useless dreamer. And that was the great difference between these two who loved each other so well.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Una persona que supera su ambiente por la cuesta del esfuerzo y el dolor puede tomar dos caminos: olvidar su pasado, o recordarlo siempre y conservar en el alma compresión y compasión por aquellos que dejó atrás en su doloroso ascenso”
― Betty Smith, 布鲁克林有棵树