SMILES
Reading edition
Smile! Never let your face look like a funeral; look like a search warrant. The bud that cannot blossom dries up in the stock. Smile, if you have to force it.
When your voice sounds like a benediction, when your face looks like an old lemon, folks are sure to sidestep you.
What you give out you are reasonably sure to take in.
Look for a fight and someone will put a black circle round your left eye.
Remember this: The face is more legible than an open book. You can read the face at a distance and get it all at a glance. The book compels you to thumb the leaves.
Smile, you son-of-a-gun, smile!
If I Knew If I knew the box where the smiles are kept, No matter how large the key, Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard 'Twould open, I know, for me. Then over the land and sea, broadcast, I'd scatter the smiles to play, That the children's faces might hold them fast For many and many a day. If I knew a box that was large enough To hold all the frowns I meet, I would like to gather them, every one, From nursery, school and street. Then, folding and holding, I'd pack them in, And, turning the monster key, I'd hire a giant to drop the box To the depths of the deep, deep sea.
"Can you tell me what a smile is?" asked a gentleman of a little girl.
"Yes, sir; it's the whisper of a laugh."