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Book: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Quotes of Book: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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  1. 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.
    book-quoteeducationschoolsocial-class

  2. 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.
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  3. Betty Smith _ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    He'd get lost if he tried to find his way back to New York from her neighborhood. Brooklyn was tricky that way. You had to live there in order to find your way about.
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  4. Betty Smith _ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    Willie tried to enlist in the army and was turned down; whereupon he threw his job, came home, announced that he was a failure, and went to bed. {...} He said he was going to stay in bed and never get up as long as he lived.
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  5. 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.
    book-quotemarriagemarried-life

  6. Betty Smith _ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    Francie loved the smell of coffee and the way it was hot. As she ate her bread and meat, she kept one hand curved about the cup enjoying its warmth. From time to time, she'd smell the bitter sweetness of it. That was better than drinking it. At the end of the meal, it went downt the sink.
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  7. Betty Smith _ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury. Mama made a big potful each morning and reheated it for dinner and supper and it got stronger as the day wore on. It was an awful lot of water and very little coffee but mama put a lump of chicory in it which made it taste strong and bitter. Each one was allowed three cups a day with milk. Other times you could help yourself to a cup of black coffee anytime you felt like it. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.Neeley and Francie loved coffee but seldom drank it. Today, as usual, Neeley let his coffee stand black and ate his condensed milk spread on bread. He sipped a little of the black coffee for the sake of formality. Mama poured out Francie's coffee and put the milk in it even though she knew that the child wouldn't drink it.
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  8. 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.
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  9. 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.
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  10. 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.
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  11. 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.
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  12. Betty Smith _ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    time, no matter what else it did, passed, and that the school boy of today was the voter of tomorrow.
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