Quotes from Betsy and Joe

Maud Hart Lovelace ·  336 pages

Rating: (4.3K votes)


“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?”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from 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.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Joe


“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”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Joe


“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.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Joe


“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...”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Joe



“You don't grow up, she reasoned now, until you begin to evaluate yourself, to recognize your good traits and acknowledge that you have a few faults.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Joe


“After Commencement Day, the world!" Joe said. "With Betsy.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Joe


About the author

Maud Hart Lovelace
Born place: in Mankato, MN, The United States
Born date April 25, 1892
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Well, if I ever suffer brain damage I know there's always a career waiting for me in local politics.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, quote from Johannes Cabal the Necromancer


“Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."

"Yes," SHe said. "I did."

She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.

"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.

"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago.”
― S.E. Hinton, quote from Tex


“If I had it my way, Harper and I wouldn't be standing in this room right now, we wouldn't be pressed against each other. I would just be her roommate's brother who pisses her off. But when it came to this girl, I was no longer in control of anything. She consumed me in every way possible. My brain was telling me to run from her, to keep her safe, to keep her from someone like me, but she had my heart completely, and that was winning out. I wanted her, I wanted her to want me and only me. Not Brandon even though I knew he was the better choice for her. But that just didn't matter to me at the moment; all I cared about was the fact that one of my best friends was winning over the only girl that would ever mean anything to me.” — Chase Grayson.”
― Molly McAdams, quote from Stealing Harper


“The best place to start an adventure is with a quiet, perfect life … and someone who realizes that it can’t possibly be enough.”
― Kevin J. Anderson, quote from Clockwork Angels


“The engineer’s head was spinning. So he was supposed to receive a guest the president didn’t want to meet. He would tell the guest the truth of the matter without saying anything, and in the middle of all this the president, who didn’t want to meet the guest, would show up to meet the guest.

The engineer realized he was getting into a situation in which one might make a fool of oneself. Other than that, he didn’t understand anything beyond that he must immediately invite the president to the dinner the president himself had just decided should take place.”
― Jonas Jonasson, quote from The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden


Interesting books

Everything I Never Told You
(169.3K)
Everything I Never T...
by Celeste Ng
Passenger
(28.9K)
Passenger
by Alexandra Bracken
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
(12.7K)
What's Eating Gilber...
by Peter Hedges
The Last Cato
(6.5K)
The Last Cato
by Matilde Asensi
The Darkest Pleasure
(40.7K)
The Darkest Pleasure
by Gena Showalter
The Black Company
(31.3K)
The Black Company
by Glen Cook

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.