Quotes from Jeannette Walls

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

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.

You didn't need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own.

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

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

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

People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what's in her nature and accept it.

Those shining stars, he liked to point out, were one of the special treats for people like us who lived out in the wilderness. Rich city folks, he'd say, lived in fancy apartments, but their air was so polluted they couldn't even see the stars. We'd have to be out of our minds to want to trade places with any of them.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Clause myth and got nothing but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. 'Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,' Dad said, ' you'll still have your stars.

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.

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

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

And as soon as the Internet hit and people started having their own web sites, I realized that people who did what I did, our positions were being threatened because, as journalists, we were the conduits between the celebrities and the public.

I didn't want to be the daughter of the crazy people.

I sit down at my desk pretty early in the morning and write all day until about 4 or 5 p.m.

During recess at school, I'd slip back into the classroom and find something in some other kid's lunch bag that wouldn't be missed - a package of crackers, an apple - and I'd gulp it down so quickly I would barely be able to taste it.

I believe that everyone has some huge talent in them; the really lucky ones discover what it is.

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.

One of the blessings of my childhood was being a fighter and a scrapper, but being a fighter and a scrapper is a curse, too.

Donald Trump really understood how to float a story, how to float a rumor, how to manipulate the truth.

I was going to some fabulous party, and my taxi got stuck in traffic, and I looked out the window, and I saw a homeless woman rooting through the garbage, and I realized it was my mother. And I was so mortified that I ducked down, and I hid.

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.

Everything in life is gray, you know.

What's wrong with social climbing? What's wrong with trying to improve your lot in life? And if you do, what happens if your family doesn't? Is that betraying your roots? Are you being dishonest? I had a really good job, and it paid really well. Am I supposed to quit it out of loyalty to my parents?