Jeannette Walls Quotes - Page 4

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

I'm a big believer in luck - the harder you work, the luckier you become.

When I asked my mother, ‘how do I tell people about you’ her answer was ‘tell the truth’. But of course, the truth is never simple.

One of the many lessons I hope I've learned is how much I underestimated people, their open-mindedness and their willingness to understand. I think, moreover, I underestimated the degree to which everyone has a story. So my advice, for whatever it's worth, is to trust readers, trust the truth and trust the power of storytelling.

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

One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table.

I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected o the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn't have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that 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.

She had her addictions and one of them was reading.

Whenever I'm reading a book I enjoy, I always develop a mental list of the people I want to share it with.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I could see why Archimedes got all excited. There was nothing finer than the feeling that came rushing through you when it clicked and you suddenly understood something that had puzzled you. It made you think it just might be possible to get a handle on this old world after all.

My older sister achieved her dream of being an artist. She's an illustrator living in Manhattan.

When I got a little older, I started writing for the high school newspaper, The Maroon Wave, and that's when I fell in love with journalism.

The dangerous falls were the ones that happened so fast you didn't have time to react

It was good work, the kind of work that let you sleep soundly at night and, when you awoke, look forward to the day.

As I sat down, though, I realized that you can get used to certain luxuries that you start to think they're necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don't need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things--though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart--and at the ranch, I could see, we have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else.

She was developing what Mom called a bit of a sarcastic streak.

I find books that have a moral and spiritual center, that speak to what is really important and lasting, hugely appealing.

I always wanted to be a serious journalist.