Jeannette Walls > Quotes

“Things usually work out in the end."
"What if they don't?"
"That just means you haven't come to the end yet.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.”
― Jeannette Walls

“You should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them. You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“I never believed in Santa Claus. None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn't afford expensive presents and they didn't want us to think we weren't as good as other kids who, on Christmas morning, found all sorts of fancy toys under the tree that were supposedly left by Santa Claus.
Dad had lost his job at the gypsum, and when Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each one of us kids out into the desert night one by one.
"Pick out your favorite star", Dad said.
"I like that one!" I said.
Dad grinned, "that's Venus", he said. He explained to me that planets glowed because reflected light was constant and stars twinkled because their light pulsed.
"I like it anyway" I said.
"What the hell," Dad said. "It's Christmas. You can have a planet if you want."
And he gave me Venus.

Venus didn't have any moons or satellites or even a magnetic field, but it did have an atmosphere sort of similar to Earth's, except it was super hot-about 500 degrees or more. "So," Dad said, "when the sun starts to burn out and Earth turns cold, everyone might want to move to Venus to get warm. And they'll have to get permission from your descendants first.
We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. "Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten," Dad said, "you'll still have your stars.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“....he said it was interesting. He used the word 'textured'. He said 'smooth' is boring but 'textured' was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever had tried to hurt me.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“She had her addictions and one of them was reading.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Once you'd resolved to go, there was nothing to it at all.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, you'll still have your stars.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“You didn't need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“The women I know with strong personalities, the ones who might have become generals or the heads of companies if they were men, become teachers. Teaching is a calling, too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy--angles leading their flocks out of the darkness.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“No one expected you to amount to much," she told me. "Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Life's too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what's in her nature and accept it.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“Those shining stars, he liked to point out, were one of the special treats for people like us who lived out in the wilderness. Rich city folks, he'd say, lived in fancy apartments, but their air was so polluted they couldn't even see the stars. We'd have to be out of our minds to want to trade places with any of them.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Clause myth and got nothing but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. 'Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,' Dad said, ' you'll still have your stars.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“You can't prepare for everything life's going to throw at you. And you can't avoid danger. It's there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you'll out on all the adventure.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“You can't cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is "If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle