Quotes About Independence

I am still committed to the idea that the ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language.

To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

As it happened I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have know have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places that I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where to cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I wait to hear.

As it happened I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places that I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where to cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I wait to hear.

She dressed every morning with a greater sense of purpose than she had felt in some time, a cotton skirt, a jersey, sandals she could kick off when she wanted the touch of the accelerator, and she dressed very fast, running a brush through her hair once or twice and tying it back with a ribbon...

What would you say you've taken away from all this? ... That running away solves nothing? That my desperate need for a man to fill my life, to make me feel whole, blinded me to what's important? ...

I liked my floaty, superior life more than I could have admitted. I liked the remote spaces I was settling into. I liked looking down from above — the calm of it. I kept this preference to myself. Mostly.

I have the irrational habit of not listening to people who tell me what to do

Ruby was the proud owner of The Best Little Hairhouse in Texas.

I didn't and don't want to be a 'feminine' version or a diluted version or a special version or a subsidiary version or an ancillary version, or an adapted version of the heroes I admire. I want to be the heroes themselves.

I liked her better for showing a little spirit.

Sometimes walking away is best. I should know. It's my specialty.

I've always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?

The only way someone can leave you is if you let them.

She became whoever she needed to be to survive,but she never let anyone else define her.

Men. You can't live with them...and you can't legally shoot them. I tossed out my husband eight years ago and got a llama instead. Best decision I ever made.

If he says jump, she doesn't even ask How high? She goes out and buys a pogo stick.

I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway.

she didn't need anyone. At Wheeler, even when she stood out with her pink hair and quilter army-surplus jacket and combat bots, she did this without apology. It was a great irony that the very fact of a relationship with her would diminish her appeal, that the moment she came to love me back and depend on me as much as I depended on her, she would no longer be a truly independent spirit. No way in hell was I going to be the one to take that quality away from her.

You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied. Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.

It's also worth noting that, when you meet someone, you never ask if he's right- or left-handed. After all: Does it really matter to anyone other than the person holding the pen?

I had not asked to be rescued, true, but that did not mean I didn't need saving.

Reason number 106 why dogs are smarter than humans: once you leave the litter, you sever contact with your mothers.

The only job a parent has is work themselves out of a job.