|
d5aec75
|
Anyone who thinks he's too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
c4bcb7c
|
People say that when you return to the place where you grew up, it always seems smaller than you remember. ...but I don't know if it was because I had built it up in my memories or I had gotten bigger. Maybe both.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
2edc432
|
A little while after we'd moved into the depot, we heard Mom and Dad talking about buying us kids real beds, and we said they shouldn't do it. We liked our boxes. They made going to bed seem like an adventure. pg. 52
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
38168d2
|
God knows what He's doing,
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
4a38609
|
Mom also hinted a couple of times that it was good I was going to college, since with one failed marriage behind me, I 'd have trouble landing a good husband and would need something to fall back on. "A package that's been opened once doesn't have the same appeal"."
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
22eaff0
|
Lori wanted Mom to try on the glasses, too. Mom slipped them on and, blinking, looked around the room. She studied one of her own paintings quietly, then handed the glasses back to Lori. "Did you see better?" I asked. "I wouldn't say better," Mom answered. "I'd say different."
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
12fee63
|
It's not being prejudiced," Mom said. "It's a matter of accuracy in labeling."
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
2457aa3
|
And if the world went to hell in a handbasket-as it seemed to be doing-you could say good-bye to everyone and retreat to your land, hunkering down and living off it.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
cad1f33
|
I found the gas," he said. "Now all's I need to do is find the brake."
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
e8e4743
|
We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas 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."
|
|
stars
inspirational
parental-love
gifts
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
e065c74
|
There was no better way to read a man's character than to watch him play poker. Some played with the aim of holding on to what they had, others played to make a killing. For some it was gambling pure and simple, for others it was a game of skill involving small calculated risks. For some it was about numbers, for others it was about psychology.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
1caf77b
|
Everything in life had a purpose, and unless it achieved that purpose, it was just taking up space on the planet and wasting everybody's time.
|
|
time
life
purpose
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
34f6cec
|
Anyone who thinks he's too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito", I'd tell people."
|
|
voting
memoir
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
c92c9b2
|
She loved the dry, crackling heat, the way the sky at sunset looked like a sheet of fire, and the overwhelming emptiness and severity of all that open land that had once been a huge ocean bed. pg. 21
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
100e68c
|
I was torturing the fire, giving it life, and snuffing it out. pg. 33
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
396dbca
|
I didn't have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. pg. 34
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
1dc4762
|
Everyone has something good about them," she said. "You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that."
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
9b8d379
|
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
012b029
|
I never met a kid I couldn't teach. Every kid was good at something, and the trick was to find out what it was, then use it to teach him everything else. It was good work, the kind of work that let you sleep soundly at night and, when you awoke, look forward to the next day.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
8a81182
|
If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, Mom always said, just watch the sunrise. And if you want to be reminded of the wrath of the Lord, Dad said, watch a tornado.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
1917782
|
You can't live in fear of something as basic as fire.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
982a3da
|
Ironing was a particularly galling waste of time. You'd spend twenty minutes pressing one shirt front and back, spraying starch and getting the creases sharp, but once the man of the house put it on, it would wrinkle as soon as he bent an elbow; plus, you couldn't even see whether the danged shirt was ironed or not under his suit coat.
|
|
ironing
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
5835cfe
|
The tree burst into color and we all gasped at the red, yellow, green, white and the blue lights boldly growing in the cold night, the only lights for miles around in the inmense darkness of the range.
|
|
ranch-life
range
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
48b7ad1
|
She kept saying that the flood was God's will and we had to submit to it. But I didn't see things that way. Submitting seemed to me a lot like giving up. If God gave us the strength to bail--the gumption to try to save ourselves--isn't that what he wanted us to do?
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
4d5acf1
|
Job, chapter fourteen, verse seven," Aunt Al said. " 'For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease.' "
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
4058a8c
|
spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour,
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
dca6f85
|
I think you'd make a wonderful teacher. You have a strong personality. 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.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
cf21a3a
|
When Dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle. All of Dad's engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert. It would have a glass ceiling and thick glass walls and even a glass staircase. The Glass Castle would have sol..
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
c7dc2fe
|
You know you're down and out when Okies laugh at you,' she said. With our garbage bag taped window, our tied down hood, and art supplies strapped to the roof, we'd out-Okied the Okies.
|
|
oklahoma
poor
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
960f801
|
The barn was dark from the storm, and we couldn't find the harness, which no one had used in years. Old Jake, who had sprained his good foot falling off a horse and was hobbling around worse than ever, started getting panicky at the idea of the dam giving out and washing away the cattle, but I told him to hush his mouth. We all knew what was at stake, and if we were going to save the ranch, we needed clear heads.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
5304a7a
|
Dad said High Lonesome, as the area was known, wasn't a place for the soft of head or the weak of heart, and he said that was why he and I made out just fine there, because we were both tough nuts.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
391d138
|
aficionados of the weather. We'd follow a storm
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
4aed17c
|
As for the learning itself, I figured you didn't need a college degree to become on of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
bab17fb
|
There was nothing to compare with standing on a piece of land you owned free and clear. No one could push you off it, no one could take it from you, no one could tell you what to do with it. The soil belonged to you, and so did every rock, every blade of grass, every tree, and all the water and minerals under the land all the way to the center of the earth. And if the world went to hell in a hand-basket--as it seemed to be doing--you could ..
|
|
property
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
5c3bc10
|
Mom asked me if I was okay. I shrugged and nodded. "Well, there you go", she said. She said that sexual assault was a crime of perception. "If you don't think you're hurt, then you aren't", she said. "So many women make such a big deal out of these things. But you're stronger then that", she went back to her crossword puzzle."
|
|
mysogyny
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
bff7123
|
WHEN PEOPLE KILL THEMSELVES, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
1e473e6
|
I've told you before, life's not about doing what you want.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
6d98d30
|
we should never eat the liver of a polar bear because all the vitamin A in it could kill us.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
e1a4c01
|
woman grabbed my shirt and tried to pull me over the chain. "It's all right," I told her. "My dad does stuff like this all the time." "He should be arrested!" she shouted. "Okay, kids,"
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
88b6e26
|
Most important thing in life," he would say, "is learning how to fall." *"
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |
|
b8339d2
|
A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the border between turbulence and order.
|
|
|
Jeannette Walls |