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

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.

It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.

Goodbye—God bless you.

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

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...

Man hätte meinen können, all die Unwillkommenen würden sich zusammentun und gemeinsam gegen die Macht auftreten, die sie nicht aufkommen lassen wollte. Aber dem war nicht so. Sie hassten einander ebensosehr, wie die Lehrerin sie...

Her time has come,” answered Miss Lizzie. “That’s why I didn’t marry Harvey – long ago when he asked me. I was afraid of ‘that’. So afraid.” “I don’t know,” Miss Lizzie said. “Sometimes I...

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, Francie, was the dreamer?

We’ve used a lot of stuff since the Can-Care-A-Van. We go through pork and beans and green beans and things like that so fast. I’ve had to replenish those twice already.

…May I have this damaged bunch for two cents? Speak strongly and it shall be yours for two cents. That is a saved penny that you put in the star bank…Suffer the cold for an...

She sat in the sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life.

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,...

(Donations) slow down during the summer. I’ve only been here since the first of the year, but it has slowed down. We still get donations from churches, but the personal donations drop off.

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...

You must teach the child of the signs that come to the women of our family when there is trouble and death to be.

Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn’t adopt chemistry as a religion.

You should have heard him 10 minutes ago.

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...

I know that’s what people say– you’ll get over it. I’d say it, too. But I know it’s not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won’t forget. Every time you fall...

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....

The world was hers for the reading.

I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.

Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It’s growing out of sour earth....

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...

I will not speak falsely and say to you: ‘Do not grieve for me when I go.’ I have loved my children and tried to be a good mother and it is right that my...

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

Look at everthing as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.

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

Because,” explained Mary Rommely 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...

Oh, and you must not forget the Kris Kringle. The child must believe in him until she reaches the age of six.”” I KNOW there is not Santa Claus.””Yet you must teach the child that...

Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I’ll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and...

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time.

Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the...

She had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered ‘different.’ She did not suffer too much.

It is good thing to learn the truth one’s self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When...

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. She pushed open the door and...

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...

You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you’re making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. In the...

In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you...

The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed.””That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn...

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...

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

Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and...

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

Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words! For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word....

Wouldn’t it be more of a free country,” persisted Francie “if we could ride in them free?” “No.” “Why?” “Because that would be Socialism,” concluded Johnny triumphantly, “and we don’t want that over here.” “Why?”...