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Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting. Isn't that a sin? I asked Mom. Not exactly, Mom said. God doesn't mind you bending the rules a little if you have a good reason. It's sort of like justifiable homicide. This is justifiable pilfering.

Jeannette Walls

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Jeannette Walls
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: April 21
Journalist
Writer
Phoenix
Arizona
Reason
Rules
Little
Exactly
Mind
Sin
Good
Asked
Shoplifting
Would
Told
Justifiable
Like
Sort
Homicide
Doesn
Bending
Littles
Mom

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One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table.
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In my opinion, trying to guess what readers want is the wrong approach. You have to tell your story as best you can and as true to yourself as possible. You have to be honest and fair and vulnerable and foolish and brave, and not care what anyone thinks of it.
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Things usually work out in the end. What if they don't? That just means you haven't come to the end yet.
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Interesting people always have a past.
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My life is not just about the past.
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She had her addictions and one of them was reading.
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[Optimism] acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Horses were never wrong. They always did what they did for a reason, and it was up to you to figure it out.
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Whenever I'm reading a book I enjoy, I always develop a mental list of the people I want to share it with.
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When I got a little older, I started writing for the high school newspaper, The Maroon Wave, and that's when I fell in love with journalism.
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I found out that people are incredibly compassionate and kind. It really changed my view of the world.
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Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. I never knew a girl to have such gumption, she'd say. But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.
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I listen to music mostly in the evening. I've come to love what is called world music, like the Zimbabwean Oliver Mtukudzi and the Colombian singer Marta Gomez. I also love the Irish folk singer Mary Black. Other favorites include Chet Baker, Eva Cassidy, and Billie Holiday.
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We're stronger than we realize.
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I find books that have a moral and spiritual center, that speak to what is really important and lasting, hugely appealing.
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Mom could say that in hindsight, but it seemed to me that when you were in the middle of something, it was awful hard to figure out what part of it was God's will and what wasn't.
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One of the most challenging aspects of writing a memoir is finding your own voice, and you should be very careful about being influenced by someone else's voice.
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My older sister achieved her dream of being an artist. She's an illustrator living in Manhattan.
Jeannette Walls
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You West Virginia girls are one tough breed, he said. You got that right, I told him.
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Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.
Jeannette Walls