Jeannette Walls Quotes

If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.

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.

Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.

Horses were never wrong. They always did what they did for a reason, and it was up to you to figure it out.

One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.

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

Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.

But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.

The fact is, you don't love me, and you haven't destroyed me. You don't have what it takes to do that.

Confidence doesn't come from thinking you're perfect or flawless. That's arrogance. Confidence comes from appreciating the beauty of your texture.

When someone's wounded, the first order of business is to stop the bleeding. You can figure out later how best to help them heal.

In this world, it's not enough to have a fine education. You need a piece of paper to prove you got it.

Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.

You're in a horse race but you're thinking like a sheep. Sheep don't win horse races.

Anyone who thinks he's too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito

Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.

....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.

If you had weak eyes, they needed exercise to get strong. Glasses were like crutches. They prevented people with feeble eyes from seeing the world on their own.

My advice to anyone is to figure out what you're good at - what it is that you love doing the most in life - and figure out a way to make a living from it.

You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.

[Optimism] acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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.

God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.

It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.

If you want to be treated like a mother, act like one.

When God closes a door, he opens a window, but it's up to you to find it.

sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it

Horses are a mirror of who you are. They're emotionally dependent on you.

If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim

Things usually work out in the end." "What if they don't?" "That just means you haven't come to the end yet.

Once you'd resolved to go, there was nothing to it at all.

I never had any question that my parents loved me. I had a real sense of self confidence.

Teaching is a calling too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy - angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.

Interesting people always have a past.

I was so worried that people wouldn't like me or my story.

You'll never make a fortune working for the boss man.

Don't be afraid of your dark places. ... If you can shine a light on them, you'll find treasure there.

Fussing over children who cry only encourages them. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.

Memoir is about handing over you life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it.

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.

It's really not that hard to put food on the table if that's what you decide to do.

Life there was hard and it made people hard.

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.

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.

She had her addictions and one of them was reading.

New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly.

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.

Life's too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are

No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.

Don't you make fun of me or my children! Some babies are premature. Mine were all postmature. That's why they're so smart. Their brains had longer to develop.