Quotes About Independence

We had put almost all of our possessions in storage, which was a metaphor for being twenty, as were so many things.

Tell him not to smoke in your apartment. Tell him to get out. At first he protests. But slowly, slowly, he leaves, pulling up the collar on his expensive beige raincoat, like an old and haggard Robert Culp. Slam the door like Bette Davis. Love drains from you, takes with it much of your blood sugar and water weight. You are like a house slowly losing its electricity, the fans slowing, the lights dimming and flickering; the clocks stop and go and stop.

No, we're not getting married," I told my mother on the phone when she asked. "He's going to California and I'm staying here." Usually she doesn't phone. Usually she just does things like send me notes with histrionic scrawlings that read, "Well, you know, I can't use these," and along with the notes she encloses coupons for Kotex or Midol.

Let's make our own way,' says the Mother, 'and not in this boat.

Remember, if you have a problem, it's your problem. Solve it. Don't blame other people. Don't burden people with your complaints. Ninety percent of the people you meet don't care about your troubles. The other 10 percent are glad you have them.

I'm a solitary sort, I get chaffed by too many elbows.

Roza didn't want to go, and she made the woman promise to let her ride the horse again. It was apparently called "Russia" because it was very big, a complete liability, and always going where it wasn't wanted.

No matter how much I admire our schools, I know that no university exists that can provide an education; what a university can provide is an outline, to give the learner a direction and guidance. The rest one has to do for oneself.

To live in a city, one must be larger than one's environment or enjoy belonging to the crowd.

He is a fool who will descend into a well on another man's rope.

difference between a child and an adult is not years, rather it's a willingness to accept responsibility, to be responsible for one's own actions.

Not that folks disliked me or that I ever went around being mean, but folks never did get close to me and it was most likely my fault. There was always something standoffish about me. I liked folks, but I liked the wild animals, the lonely trails, and the mountains better.

It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn.

It is a living. It is enough. I am free. The nights are long and quiet, the mornings cool and bright, I live with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The air is fresh where I am, and there is no one to hurry me or to demand this or that of me.

But a long time ago I made me a rule: I let people do what they want to do.

as they were, and skillful with weapons, they went about where they liked and did as they pleased, approaching the inevitable time when they would cross the wrong man

But in the West few men would risk bothering a woman. It was the one thing the frontier would not accept - Kilkenny

Ma'am,' I said, 'I'd have liked it, having you for a ma.

This was a big country needing big men and women to live in it, and there was no place out here for the frightened or the mean.

If they didn't accept him, the hell with them - he could go his own way.

You will remember that we won our freedom because we were armed. We were not a simple peasantry unused to weapons. The men who wrote our Constitution knew our people would be safe as long as they were armed.

He had no love for sleeping inside and wanted his horse near him. There was something about lying under the stars that was conducive to thought, and he had some thinking to do.

You will leave here at daybreak and you will leave alone. He smiled, showing a fine set of white, even teeth. And if I do not choose to? Bodies do not lie long upon the ground. The coyotes dispose of them.

tawny-headed man