Quotes from Jeannette Walls

newspaper writer ought to get out of his office and see the way the world works. He could interview me about it. Or Aunt Faye. Because sometimes men don't take care of the women. And that's why we women need our jobs.

Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten," Dad said, "you'll still have your stars.

Slow down, Sallie." Tom puts a hand on my arm, and then in a gentler voice says, "Your aunt will be okay. We'll see to that." "She wouldn't have got hurt if I'd been there." "Sallie, I don't know if that's true, and you don't either. But I do know you couldn't stay in Hatfield when the Duke sent for you. You had to come back. You had no choice.

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.

Eventually, even Mom acknowledged that I'd done all right. "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.

Don't be someone else's little cheerleader", Mom said. "Be the star of your own show. Even if there's no audience.

The tenants with jobs at the lumber mill or the warehouses or on a road crew pay cash. Some tenants pay with Kincaids, as we call the scrip we give out at the Emporium. The dirt farmers pay with corn, tobacco, hams, eggs, sacks of walnuts or potatoes, jars of pickles or fruit preserves, but mostly bottles of homemade whiskey—and we sell it all at the Emporium.

I had always wanted a watch. Unlike diamonds, watches were practical. They were for people on the run, people with appointments to keep and schedules to meet. That was the kind of person I wanted to be.

Unless what?" I ask. "Unless, it's all a plot, Sallie," Mattie says. "Unless it's all been a plot from the beginning. Seymour arranges for the Duke to meet a woman he had a history with. Once the Duke marries her, Seymour just happens to show up and three days later goads the Duke into doing something stupid that gets him killed, then before the Duke's body is cold Seymour marries his widow to get his hands on Eddie's inheritance.

I just stood there looking from one distorted face to another, listening to this babble of enraged squabbling as the members of the Walls family gave vent to all their years of hurt and anger, each unloading his or her own accumulated grievances and blaming the others for allowing the most fragile one of us to break into pieces.

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 encourages them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.

She bought a bucket. It was made of yellow plastic, and we kept it on the floor in the kitchen, and that was what we used whenever we had to go to the bathroom. When it filled up, some brave soul would carry it outside, dig a hole, and empty it.

Mattie was right about one thing. I should have seen it all coming. I should have seen how much you were hurting, should have seen what Seymour meant to you, should have stopped him from leaving, should have spoken up, done something. If I had seen it coming, we could've fixed whatever was wrong, you and me, we could have made it work. But I didn't. So we can't. Jane was right. I was a danger to you. I never should have come back.

Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

That was the thing to remember about all monsters, Dad said: They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.

When I brought up some career possibilities, she told me that the only thing she wanted to do was help fight the Mormon cults that had kidnapped thousands of people in Utah.

You just got here, Mary Montgomery Canon. You and your new pastor husband and all your holier-than-thou notions. Your bags aren't even unpacked. You have no idea what help you need. And by the time you find out it will be too late.

switchbacks, passing walls of limestone and sandstone layered like giant stacks of old papers.

And yet, that day back when Tom told me about all those different laws, he had a thirteen-year-old's spotty understanding of the way the world works but he sure was right about one thing. What matters most are the laws made by the people close to you, the ones you depend on. Now that's Mary. I reach for the ax.

Mary was so certain she was right, but the cause she was certain would save lives destroyed them, the man who swore to be loyal abandoned her, and the pregnancy she thought would bring new life killed her. I told myself not to be that certain about anything.

Dad said something about freaks of nature, and Mom called Dad a Mr. Know-It-All Smarty-Pants who refused to believe that she was special. Dad said something about Jesus H. Christ on a goddamn crutch not taking that much time to gestate. Mom got upset at Dad's blasphemy, reached her foot over to the driver's side, and stomped on the brake.

Six months later, Maureen stabbed Mom.

Once the fire was out and the sodden, burned tree lay smoldering on the floor, we all just stood there. No one tried to wring Dad's neck or yell at him or even point out that he'd ruined the Christmas his family had spent weeks planning—the Christmas that was supposed to be the best we'd ever had. When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night.

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