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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.

Jeannette Walls

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Jeannette Walls
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: April 21
Journalist
Writer
Phoenix
Arizona
Stories
Honest
Foolish
Care
Opinion
Fairs
Best
Possible
Fair
Writing
Anyone
Thinks
Trying
Wrong
Brave
Thinking
Story
Guess
Tell
Reader
Readers
True
Approach
Vulnerable

More quotes by Jeannette Walls

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[Optimism] acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.
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Confidence doesn't come from thinking you're perfect or flawless. That's arrogance. Confidence comes from appreciating the beauty of your texture.
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She had her addictions and one of them was reading.
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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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Everything in life is gray, you know.
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One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table.
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Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.
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One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.
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My advice to anyone is to figure out what you're good at - what it is that you love doing the most in life - and figure out a way to make a living from it.
Jeannette Walls
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Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encouraged them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.
Jeannette Walls
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When someone's wounded, the first order of business is to stop the bleeding. You can figure out later how best to help them heal.
Jeannette Walls
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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.
Jeannette Walls
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But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence.
Jeannette Walls
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My life is not just about the past.
Jeannette Walls
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Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you are young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul.
Jeannette Walls
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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.
Jeannette Walls
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Anyone who thinks he's too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito
Jeannette Walls
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God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.
Jeannette Walls
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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.
Jeannette Walls