A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Quotes

“If she never had any lovers, she kicks herself around when the change comes, thinking of all the fun she could have had, didn’t have, and now can’t have. If she had a lot of lovers, she argues herself into believing that she did wrong and she’s sorry now. She carries on that way because she knows that soon all her woman-ness will be lost…lost. And if she makes believe being with a man was never any good in the first place, she can get comfort out of her change.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“How’d you know it was a tulip if you’d never seen one?”
“I’d seen pictures. Well, when I looked at it, the way it was growing, and how the leaves were, and how purely red the petals were, with yellow inside, the world turned upside down and everything went around like the colors in a kaleidoscope”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Why should I want to cheat you, Mrs. Nolan?” he asked plaintively as he put the money away carefully.
“Why should anyone want to cheat anybody?” she asked in return. “But they do.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“All she’d notice was that some things were strange because they reminded her of Brooklyn and that other things were strange because they were so different from Brooklyn. “I guess there is nothing new, then, in the world,” decided Francie unhappily. “If there is anything new or different, some part of it must be in Brooklyn and I must be used to it and wouldn’t be able to notice it if I came across it.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Some day I'll fool you, Mama. I'll do what I think is right for me and it might not be right in your way.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Neeley, if you had to die, wouldn't it be wonderful to die now—while you believed that everything was perfect, the way this night is perfect?”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Somehow, good talking had gotten tied up with good sex in his mind. He wanted a woman to talk to, one to whom he could tell all his thoughts; and he wanted her to talk to him, warmly, wisely and intimately...In his dumb fumbling way, he wanted a union of mind and soul along with union of body.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“She learned of the class system of a great Democracy. She was puzzled and hurt by teacher’s attitude. Obviously the teacher hated her and others like her for no other reason than that they were what they were. Teacher acted as though they had no right to be in the school but that she was forced to accept them and was doing so with as little grace as possible. She begrudged them the few crumbs of learning she threw at them. Like the doctor at the health center, she too acted as though they had no right to live. It would seem as if all the unwanted children would stick together and be one against the things that were against them. But not so. They hated each other as much as the teacher hated them. They aped teacher's snarling manner when they spoke to each other.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“When it first appeared, in 1943, it was called, by those critics who liked it, an honest book, and that is accurate as far as it goes. But it is more than that: It is deeply, indelibly true. Honesty is casting bright light on your own experience; truth is casting it on the experiences of all, which is why, six decades after it was published and became an instant bestseller, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn continues to be read by people from all countries and all circumstances. Early on in its explosive success it was described as a book about city life, a story about grinding poverty, a tale of the struggles of immigrants in America. But all those things are setting, really, and the themes are farther-reaching: the fabric of family, the limits of love, the loss of innocence, and the birth of knowledge”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Frances Nolan, age 15 years and 4 months. April 6, 1917. She thought: “If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no being old for me. There’s a long, long time yet before fifty years…millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here…one hour less to live…one hour gone away from all the hours of my life. “Dear God,” she prayed, “let”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Remember Joanna. Remember Joanna. Francie could never forget her. From that time on, remembering the stoning women, she hated women. She feared them for their devious ways, she mistrusted their instincts. She began to hate them for this disloyalty and their cruelty to each other. Of all the stone-throwers, not one had dared to speak a word for the girl for fear that she would be tarred with Joanna’s brush.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Everything was changing. Francie was in a panic. Her world was slipping away from her and what would take its place? Still, what was different anyhow? She read a page from the Bible and Shakespeare every night the same as always. She practiced the piano every day for an hour. She put pennies in the tin-can bank. The junk shop was still there; the stores were all the same. Nothing was changing. She was the one who was changing. She”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“And the sleds! (Or, as the Williamsburg children called them, the sleighs.) There was a child’s dream of heaven come true! A new sled with a flower someone had dreamed up painted on it—a deep blue flower with bright green leaves—the ebony-black painted runners, the smooth steering bar made of hard wood and gleaming varnish over all! And the names painted on them! “Rosebud!” “Magnolia!” “Snow King!” “The Flyer!” Thought Francie, “If I could only have one of those, I’d never ask God for another thing as long as I live.” There”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Although Katie had this same flair for coloring an incident and Johnny himself lived in a half-dream world, yet they tried to squelch these things in their child. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe they knew their own gift of imagination colored too rosily the poverty and brutality of their lives and made them able to endure it. Perhaps Katie thought that if they did not have this faculty, they would be clearer-minded; see things as they really were, and seeing them loathe them and somehow find a way to make them better. Francie”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful,” said Katie. “But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is. Look at those children.” She pointed to a swarm of dirty children playing in the gutter. “You could take any one of them and wash him good and dress him up and sit him in a fine house and you would think he was beautiful.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Before you die, you must own a bit of land—maybe with a house on it that your child or your children may inherit.” Katie laughed. “Me own land? A house? We’re lucky if we can pay our rent.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“It there's one thing certain, it's that we all have to get old someday. So get used to the idea as quickly as you can.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read! From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived. She”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“SERENE WAS A WORD YOU COULD PUT TO BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“And Francie whispered yeah in agreement. She was proud of that smell. It let her know that nearby was a waterway, which, dirty though it was, joined a river that flowed out to the sea. To her, the stupendous stench suggested far-sailing ships and adventure and she was pleased with the smell.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Francie, huddled with other children of her kind, learned more that first day than she realized. She learned of the class system of a great Democracy.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“She was a blameless sinless woman, yet she understood who how it was with people who sinned. Inflexibly rigid in her own moral conduct, she condoned weaknesses in others. She revered God and loved Jesus, but she understood why people often turned away from these Two.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“In his business, he observed human nature and came to certain conclusions about it. The conclusions lacked wisdom and originality; in fact, they were tiresome. But they were important to McGarrity because he had figured them out for himself. In the first years of their marriage, he had tried to tell Mae about these conclusions, but all she said was, "I can imagine." Sometimes she varied by saying, "I can just imagine." Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her, and she was unfaithful to him.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

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

“An answer came to Katie. It was so simple that a flash of astonishment that felt like pain shot through her head. Education! That was it! It was education that made the difference! Education would pull them out of the grime and dirt.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“What must I do, Mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?” “The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read. Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret.” “I will read,” promised Katie. “What is a good book?”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“There were times though, especially towards the end of a long cold dark winter, when, no matter how hungry Francie was, nothing tasted good. That was big pickle time.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn