294 Quotes by Jeannette Walls

It (the sun) didn't really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it, that was up to me.

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

Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encouraged them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.

Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.

Dad's death didn't hollow me out the way Helen's had. After all, everyone had assumed Dad was a goner back when he got kicked in the head as a child. Instead, he had cheated death and, despite his gimp and speech impediment, lived a long life doing pretty much what he wanted. He hadn't drawn the best of cards, but he'd played his hand darned well, so what was there to grieve over?

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.

The tree burst into color and we all gasped at the red, yellow, green, white and the blue lights boldly growing in the cold night, the only lights for miles around in the inmense darkness of the range.

So they told us all about how other kids were deceived by their parents, how the toys the grown-ups claimed were made by little elves wearing bell caps in their workshop at the North Pole actually had labels on them saying MADE IN JAPAN.

There was nothing to compare with standing on a piece of land you owned free and clear. No one could push you off it, no one could take it from you, no one could tell you what to do with it.