Quotes from Jeannette Walls

I'm not so sure, Dad said. Every damn thing in the universe can be broken down into smaller things, even atom, even protons, so theoretically speaking, I guess you had a winning case. A collection of things should be considered one thing. Unfortunately, theory don't always carry the day.

bought me another snow cone, and, as he gave it to me, planted a diamond ring on top. "A piece of ice that I'm hoping will make you melt," he said.

months pregnant. Dad, who had fixed

not this lords-of-the-earth crap, trying to rule the entire goddamn planet, cutting down all the forests and killing every creature you couldn't bring to heel.

You know, if it's humanly possible, I'll get it for you. And if it ain't humanly possible, I'll die trying.

He groped me! And he's wanking off!' Mom cocked her head and looked concerned. 'Poor Stanley,' she said. 'He's so lonely.

Any little girl whose mama disappears will always have a hole in her heart that nothing will ever completely fill.

For the first time in our lives, we were living on the backs of others, but that was how you got ahead in the city. When Jim said it made him feel like a vulture, I told him that scavengers got a bum rap. "Vultures don't kill animals, they live off the dead," I said. "And that's what we're doing. We're not bringing misfortune on these people, we're just taking advantage of it.

Unfortunately, theory don't always carry the day.

For a while I considered dropping out of Barnard to help. It felt unbearably selfish, just downright wrong, to be indulging myself with

She also lent me her books, saying reading was a way of traveling the world, getting to know people you'll never meet, also traveling through time, getting to know people who lived long ago.

sat down, though, I realized that you can get so 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.

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 to 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 that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.

The other kids stared at us whispering among themselves, but they also kept distance, as if they hadn't decided whether we were predators or prey.

Mattie cocks her head. "Shame on you, then, Sallie Kincaid. You wanted to come back here to Caywood, assume your place in the Kincaid family, reminding everyone at every possible opportunity that you're the Duke's daughter, but now at the first sign of a family fight, you're saying you want no part of it. If you're truly a Kincaid, you don't have the luxury of sitting this one out.

She also told me that teachers don't know everything, but as long as they stay a step ahead of the students, the students think they do.

Besides, I'm not taking anything that isn't mine, not forcing folk to do anything they don't want to do, just helping out the people of Claiborne County who through no fault of their own are in an awful bind. Obey the law and starve. Or break the law and eat. Not a lot to ponder there.

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.

What Dad didn't understand was that no matter how much he hated or feared the future, it was coming, and there was only one way to deal with it: by climbing aboard.

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

You have a mighty high opinion of yourself, I told him. The fact is, you don't love me, and you haven't destroyed me. You don't have what it takes to do that

You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.

I feel very tired. Is that all people will ever think when they see Aunt Faye? People who've never gone without find it easy to pass judgment on those who've struggled.

She's the one married to Dad. That was her choice, I said. She needs to be firmer, lay down the law for Dad instead of getting hysterical all the time. What Dad needs is a strong woman. A caryatid wouldn't be strong enough for Dad. What's that? Pillars shaped like women, Lori said. The ones holding up those Greek temples with their heads. I was looking at a picture of some the other day, thinking, Those women have the second toughest job in the world.