Quotes About Independence

When he walked out into the lots to catch his horse, he felt grown and complete for the first time in his life.

Perhaps, he thought, as he turned back, that was what Augustus wanted: just to be free for a few days, just to saddle his horse and ride.

But as far as trusting the general run of men, there was no need, since she had no intention of ever expecting anything from one of them again.

Yet here she was, not with Clara in a theater or a nice hotel in London, but on a bleak prairie, with not even one house within a hundred miles, caring for an old killer who wanted her to cut his ruined leg off so he could get well and kill again. She had studied and educated herself, but she had not escaped.

That in itself didn't bother her, though. If there was one thing she didn't need to do, it was to talk to a man.

We don't rent pigs.

What we done wrong the first time was doing it honest. I'm through with honest. It's every man for himself in this country, and that's the way I like it. There ain't much law and mostly it can be outrun.

I ain't kin to nobody in this world. I don't want to be. I won't be.

I'd rather go outlaw than be a doctor or a lawyer.

She may know what I am, though, Lorena said. Yes, she'll know you're a human being. You don't have to duck your head to nobody. Half the women in this country probably started out like you did, workin' in saloons.

Still, he was a salaried man. Even though Katie, who had been a good wife, was dead, he was not his own master.

When his second wife died and he was free to propose, he did one day, on a picnic to the place they called her orchard, and she refused instantly, without losing a trace of merriment. Why not? he asked. I'm used to my own ways, she said. You might try to make me do something I wouldn't want to do. Don't I indulge your every whim? he asked. Yes, but that's because you haven't got me, Clara said. I bet you'd change fast if I ever let you get the upper hand. p340

Those who will give up essential liberty to secure a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. - Mark Twain

All were looking for enclaves of civilization. None had thought to build his own.

Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy. It would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't invited, not because it has a shotgun

I love you, and I want you to love me. But I do not want you to lose yourself in me, or in anyone. Nor do I want you to draw your self-confidence and your trust in life from me or from anyone else. I want you to have your own individual, independent self, and the confidence that can only spring from the self, not from others. Then -When you have achieved that - no one will ever be able to crush you.

I needed to be free to choose not to be free, get me? If someone told me I had to be a slave, 'cause I'm a woman, or 'cause I'm black, I'd fight like hell to be free. I need to know that everything I do is my decision. That's what makes it OK.

It's never about someone else the moment you realize it is up to you to get yourself to a better place. It's only about figuring out how to get there.

Someone's affection would give someone else freedom.

Time to leave the party; Time to reach for me; Time to give me room to breathe.

I had no problem being on my own. My grandfather had raised me to depend on myself. My problems came when I tried to fit myself into someone else's life, especially when that meant giving up a part of myself in the process.

He raised a glass to them and said, wherever they were, he was grateful to them for not being what I needed, so he got to be the one sitting across from me.

I think it's a good thing to know what you want. If you do, you have a chance of getting it. If you don't, you have a chance of getting only what someone else wants you to have.