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No one expected you to amount to much, she told me. Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.

Jeannette Walls

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Jeannette Walls
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: April 21
Journalist
Writer
Phoenix
Arizona
Told
Maureen
Pretty
Brian
Hard
Expected
Going
Brave
Much
Worked
Always
Except
Never
Smart
Amount
Lori

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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.
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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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If you don't think you're hurt, then you aren't
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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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Life's too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are
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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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[Optimism] acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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...even though I was getting better education at home than any of the kids in Toyah, I'd need to go to finishing school when I was thirteen, both to acquire social graces and to earn a diploma. Because in this world, Dad said, it's not enough to have a fine education. You need a piece of paper to prove you go it.
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Too much hard luck can create a permanent meanness of spirit in any creature.
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But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.
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I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.
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She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist - I helped her lace them up - but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.
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One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table.
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Living there [Horse Mesa] was like living in a natural cathedral. Waking up every morning, you walked outside and looked down at the blue lake, then up at the sandstone cliffs--those awe-inspiring layers of red and yellow rock shaped over the millennia, with dozens of black-streaked crevices that temporarily became waterfalls after rainstorms.
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Everything in life is gray, you know.
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I was so worried that people wouldn't like me or my story.
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When I asked my mother, ‘how do I tell people about you’ her answer was ‘tell the truth’. But of course, the truth is never simple.
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We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Clause myth and got nothing 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.
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You should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them. You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.
Jeannette Walls