Jeannette Walls Quotes

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.

If you don't think you're hurt, then you aren't

I hadn’t been paying much attention to things like the sunrise, but that old sun had been coming up anyway. It 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.

Life there was hard and it made people hard.

Sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better.

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

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.

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

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

Interesting people always have a past.

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

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.

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.

Too much hard luck can create a permanent meanness of spirit in any creature.

Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour," she'd ask us, "when in the same amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?

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.

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