Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. Be the first to learn about new releases!
Start by following Maud Hart Lovelace.
Showing 1-30 of 113
“She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
― Betsy-Tacy and Tib
― Betsy-Tacy and Tib
“Isn't it mysterious to begin a new journal like this? I can run my fingers through the fresh clean pages but I cannot guess what the writing on them will be.”
― Betsy in Spite of Herself
― Betsy in Spite of Herself
“Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?”
― Betsy and Joe
― Betsy and Joe
“Then he kissed her. Betsy didn't believe in letting boys kiss you. She thought it was silly to be letting first this boy and then that one kiss you, when it didn't mean a thing. But it was wonderful when Joe Willard kissed her. And it did mean a thing.”
― Betsy and Joe
― Betsy and Joe
“In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.”
― Betsy-Tacy and Tib
― Betsy-Tacy and Tib
“She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“The most important part of religion isn't in any church. It's down in your own heart. Religion is in your thoughts, and in the way you act from day to day, in the way you treat other people. It's honesty, and unselfishness, and kindness. Especially kindness.”
― Heaven to Betsy
― Heaven to Betsy
“And yet, even as she spoke, she knew that she did not wish to come back. not to stay, not to live. She loved the little yellow cottage more than she loved any place on earth. but she was through with it except in her memories. ”
― Heaven to Betsy
― Heaven to Betsy
“The wastes of snow on the hill were ghostly in the moonlight. The stars were piercingly bright.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.”
― Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding
― Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding
“Say, you told me you thought Les Miserables was the greatest novel ever written. I think Vanity Fair is the greatest. Let's fight. - Joe Willard”
― Betsy and Joe
― Betsy and Joe
“You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.”
― Heaven to Betsy
― Heaven to Betsy
“Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?”
― Betsy and the Great World
― Betsy and the Great World
“The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance.”
― Betsy in Spite of Herself
― Betsy in Spite of Herself
“What would life be like without her writing? Writing filled her life with beauty and mystery, gave it life...and promise.”
― Heaven to Betsy
― Heaven to Betsy
“They soon stopped being ten years old. But whatever age they were seemed to be exactly the right age for having fun.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
― Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
“Betsy. The great war is on but I hope ours is over. Please come home. Joe.”
― Betsy and the Great World
― Betsy and the Great World
“You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It's the beginning of growing up.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
― Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
“One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star”
― Betsy Was a Junior
― Betsy Was a Junior
“When there are boys you have to worry about how you look, and whether they like you, and why they like another girl better, and whether they're going to ask you to something or other. It's a strain.”
― Betsy in Spite of Herself
― Betsy in Spite of Herself
“Our lives can hold just so much. If they're filled with one thing, they can't be filled with another. We ought to do a lot of thinking about what we want to fill them with.”
― Betsy Was a Junior
― Betsy Was a Junior
“I'm finished with something, but I'm not beginning anything. That's wrong. When you finish something, you ought always to begin something new.”
― Emily of Deep Valley
― Emily of Deep Valley
“Betsy was so full of joy that she had to be alone. She went upstairs to her bedroom and sat down on Uncle Keith's trunk. Behind Tacy's house the sun had set. A wind had sprung up and the trees, their color dimmed, moved under a brooding sky. All the stories she had told Tacy and Tib seemed to be dancing in those trees, along with all the stories she planned to write some day and all the stories she would read at the library. Good stories. Great stories. The classics. Not Rena's novels.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“Well, Betsy," he said, "your mother tells me that you are going to use Uncle Keith's trunk for a desk. That's fine. You need a desk. I've often noticed how much you like to write. The way you eat up those advertising tablets from the store! I never saw anything like it. I can't understand it though. I never write anything but checks myself. "
"Bob!" said Mrs. Ray. "You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry."
"Cry, eh?" said Mr. Ray, grinning. "In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you're going to be a writer."
Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed.
"But if you're going to be a writer," he went on, "you've got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
"Bob!" said Mrs. Ray. "You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry."
"Cry, eh?" said Mr. Ray, grinning. "In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you're going to be a writer."
Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed.
"But if you're going to be a writer," he went on, "you've got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics.”
― Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
“The older I get the more mixed up life seems. When you're little, it's all so plain. It's all laid out like a game ready to play. You think you know exactly how it's going to go. But things happen...”
― Betsy and Joe
― Betsy and Joe
“A house with nothing old in it seems - unseasoned.”
― Emily of Deep Valley
― Emily of Deep Valley
“I've got to stop thinking about myself so much--about how I look, how I'm impressing someone, whether I'm popular or not. I've got to start thinking about other people, all the people I meet.”
― Betsy and Joe
― Betsy and Joe
“Do you girls have hope chests?' Lloyd asked.
We certainly do.'
I don't,' said Betsy. 'My husband and I are going to use paper plates and napkins.'
Poor Joe!'
Lucky Larry!”
― The Betsy-Tacy Treasury
We certainly do.'
I don't,' said Betsy. 'My husband and I are going to use paper plates and napkins.'
Poor Joe!'
Lucky Larry!”
― The Betsy-Tacy Treasury
