Quotes from Jeannette Walls

Real journalists pride themselves on getting it first and right; they get to the bottom of the story

Don´t be afraid of your dark places, Mom told her. If you can shine a light on them, you´ll find treasure there

During the sermon, the priest discussed the miracle of Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth. "Virgin, my ass!" Dad shouted. "Mary was a sweet Jewish broad who got herself knocked up!

Mom waved at the crowd. "You know you're down and out when Okies laugh at you," she said. With our garbage-bag-taped window, our roped-down hood, and the art supplies tied to the roof, we'd out-Okied the Okies. The thought gave her a fit of the giggles.

One of the ways to discover our toughness and resiliency is to look back at where we come from. (from Amazon description)

Everyone has something good about them, she said. You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that. Oh yeah? I said. How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality? Hitler loved dogs, Mom said without hesitation.

But Mom, I said. that ring could get us a lot of food. That's true, Mom said, but it could also improve my self-esteem. And at times like these, self-esteem is even more vital than food.

He hired me on the spot for forty dollars a week, in cash. I was thrilled. It was my first real job. Babysitting and tutoring and doing other kids' homework and mowing lawns and redeeming bottles and selling scrap metal didn't count. Forty dollars a week was serious money.

She snuggled into bed with them, looking up from time to time, saying she was sorry, she knew she should be doing something more productive, but like Dad, she had her addictions, and one of hers was reading.

If things don't work out, you can always come home, he said. I'll be here for you. You know that, don't you? I know. I knew that in his way, he would be. I also knew I'd never be coming back.

I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn't half bad to be in a place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.

I've always liked Abraham, a preacher from Hopewell Road whose name often appears in "Among the Colored People," a column in the Claiborne Gazette, but some folk complain that Abraham is a little too quick to speak his mind, not properly deferential, thinks the rules don't apply to him, doesn't know his place—he won't let his wife clean the houses of white folks

cannot avoid the temptation of wondering whether there is any other industry in this country which seeks to presume so completely to give the customer what he does not want.

Thing is," she continues, "Seymour can be with women. But he"—she searches for the right words—"he'd rather be with men.

Outlaw. Rumrunner. Bootlegger. Blockader. I don't for one second forget that what we are doing is illegal, but legal and illegal and right and wrong don't always line up. Ask a former slave. Plenty of them still around. Sometimes the so-called law is nothing but the haves telling the have-nots to stay in their place.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. —Oscar Wilde

Sue scraped the meat into a bowl, mixed it with mayonnaise and Cheez Whiz, then crushed a handful of potato chips and added them. She spread the mixture onto two slices of Wonder bread, then rolled each slice into a cylinder and passed

Hunting is waiting, the Duke used to say, and if you never came home empty-handed they wouldn't call it hunting.

But as you folks know, us mountain gals can be tough. We don't need ourselves any parasols or scented hankies. We can work a plow, milk a cow, shoot a buck, and slaughter a hog as well as any man.

I know what it's like to be beholden to kin, to be dependent on their kindness, all the while knowing they can cut you off with a snap of the fingers.

She added that you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. "Everyone has something good about them," she said. "You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.

Snot locker was the funniest name I'd ever heard for a nose.

This rat was not just eating the sugar. He was bathing in it, wallowing in it, positively luxuriating in it, his flickering tail hanging over the side of the bowl, flinging sugar across the table.

Mom painted dozens of variations and studies of the Joshua tree. We'd go with her and she'd give us art lessons. 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.