Jeannette Walls

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.

I'm none too big on giving advice,' Aunt Al said. 'Most times when folks ask for advice, they already know what they should do. They just want to hear it from someone else.

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.

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.

I feel like I failed," I said. "Don't beat yourself up," Jim said. "She might not have turned out like you planned, but that don't mean she turned out wrong.

You'll never make a fortune working for the boss man

As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.

You should never hate anyone, not even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them. You had to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.

It (the sun) didn't really care how I felt, it was going to rise and set regardless of whether I noticed it, and if I was going to enjoy it, that was up to me.

The sound of thunder awake me, and when I got up, my feet sank into muddy water up to my ankles. Mother took Buster and Helen to high ground to pray, but I stayed behind with Apache and Lupe. We barricaded the door with the rug and started bailing water out the window. Mother came back and begged us to go pray with her on the hilltop. "To heck with praying!" I shouted. "Bail, dammit, bail!"Mom look mortified. I could tell she thought I'd probably doomed us all with my blasphemy, and I was a little shocked at it myself, but with the water rising so fast, the situation was dire. We had lit the kerosene lamp, and we could see the walls of the dugout were beginning to sag inward. If Mom had pitched in and helped, there was a chance we might have been able to save the dugout - not a good chance, but a fighting chance. Apache and Lupe and I couldn't do it on our own, though, and when the ceiling started to cave, we grabbed Mom's walnut headboard and pulled it through the door just as the dugout collapsed in on itself, burying everything.Afterward, I was pretty aggravated with Mom. 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?

Submitting seemed to me a lot like giving up. If God gave us the strength to bail- the gumption to try and save ourselves- isn't that what he wanted us to do?

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.

God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.

People worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you. It immunized your body and soul...

Fussing over children who cry only encourages them. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.

Don't you make fun of me or my children! Some babies are premature. Mine were all postmature. That's why they're so smart. Their brains had longer to develop.

No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.

If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.