Betsy Byars Quotes

When I type a title page, I hold it and I look at it and I think, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and I’ll have a book.

It was as if her life was a huge kaleidoscope, and the kaleidoscope had been turned and now everything was changed. The same stones shaken, no longer made the same design.

I have cried over myself a hundred times this summer, she thought, I have wept over my big feet and my skinny legs and my nose, I have even cried over my stupid shoes, and now when I have true sadness there are no tears left.

The people you don't know turn out to be exactly like the people you do know, same faults, same everything.

That was the trouble with life—it never quite fulfilled its promises.

I usually get the title for a book first, and I type it up immediately. I sit there and look at it and admire it, and I think to myself, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and I'l have a book. It is such a pleasurable moment that I type many more title pages than I could ever use.

I stood right in this house, in that room," Aunt Willie interrupted. She pointed toward the front bedroom. "And I promised your mother, Sara, that I would look after Charlie all my life. I promised your mother nothing would ever happen to Charlie as long as there was breath in my body, and now look. Look! Where is this boy I'm taking such good care of?" She threw her hands into the air. "Vanished without a trace, that's where." Aunt Willie, you can't watch him every minute." Why not? Why can't I? What have I got more important in my life than looking after that boy? Only one thing more important than Charlie. Only one thing--that devil television there." Aunt Willie--" Oh, yes, that devil television. I was sitting right in that chair last night and he wanted me to sew on one button for him but I was too busy with the television. I'll tell you what I should have told your mother six years ago. I should have told her, "Sure, I'll be glad to look after Charlie except when there's something good on television. I'll be glad to watch him in my spare time.' My tongue should fall out on the floor for promising to look after your brother and not doing it.

What’s gotten into him?” “Five-Thirty,” I called back. “I didn’t ask the time,” she called. “Get that dog out of there, and fill that hole in.

Pete opened the cellar doors.

I didn't know you were held back." "I was." "I didn't know you could be a teacher if you were held back." "You can be anything you want if you work hard." "And I guess you don't get extra credit because you're the teacher." "Right. I give all the credit to Mrs. Kincaid, who answered my SOS.

What I was going to miss the most, though, were just everyday things that weren't planned at all.......That's the kind of fun that doesn't sound like much when you tell it, but I would miss it on the farm. -Tom, The Midnight Fox/Chapter 2

mother to the stairs. “Can I ask you something?