Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jeannette Walls Books
Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls Books

Writer

The Silver Star

A source page for quotes linked to Jeannette Walls.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“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?”

GodMotherReligionPrayingDaughterAngerDisagreementDisbeliefBlasphemyDoingNatural DisasterFlash Flood
Book:Half Broke Horses
Create image

“Our blood up, we searched the streets for hours, but we never did find the guy. I asked Mom and Dad if we should close the doors and windows when we went to sleep. They wouldn't consider it. We needed the fresh air, they said, and it was essential that we refuse to surrender to fear. So the windows stayed open. Maureen kept having nightmares of men in Halloween masks. And every now and then, when Brian and I were feeling revved up, he'd get a machete and I'd get a baseball bat and we'd go Pervert Hunting, clearing the streets of the creeps who preyed on kids.”

SadDysfunctional Family
Book:The Glass Castle
Create image

“They're so weird and so beautiful," she said. "Like you," I said. I meant it as a joke, but Liz nodded. She felt that she was sort of like an emu herself, she said. Maybe that was why she'd had flying dreams ever since she was a little girl -- at heart, she was an emu. She was sure the emus also dreamed of flying. It was another thing they had in common. Both she and the emus wanted to fly -- they just didn't have the wings they wanted.”

InspirationalFunnyBeautifulFlyingAnimals
Book:The Silver Star
Create image

“I realized that you can get so used to certain luxuries that you start to think they’re necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don’t need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things—though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart—and at the ranch, I could see, we’d have pretty much everything we’d need but precious little else.”

NeedWanting
Book:Half Broke Horses
Create image

“Dad was on the porch, pacing back and forth in that uneven stride he had on account of having a gimp leg. When he saw, he let out a yelp of delight and started hobbling down the steps towards us. Mom came running out of the house. She sank down on her knees, clasped her hands in front of her, and started praying up to the heavens, thanking the Lord for delivering her children from the flood. It was she who had saved us, she declared, by staying up all night praying. "You get down on your knees and thank your guardian angel," she said. "And thank me, too." Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it. I was the one who'd saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel. No one was up in that cottonwood tree except the three of us. Dad came alongside me and put his arms around my shoulders. "There weren't no guardian angel, Dad," I said. I started explaining how I'd gotten us to the cottonwood tree in time, figuring out how to switch places when our arms got tired and keeping Buster and Helen awake through the long night by quizzing them. Dad squeezed my shoulder. "Well, darling," he said, "maybe the angel was you.”

LoveChildrenMotherReligionParentsGuardian AngelNatural DisasterBad WeatherFlash Flood
Book:Half Broke Horses
Create image

“A few days later, Dad was able to walk around, but he had no appetite, and his hands still trembled. I told Mom that maybe I had made a terrible mistake, but Mom said sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better. Within a few more days, Dad seemed almost normal, except that he d become tentative, even kind of shy. He smiled at us kids a lot and squeezed our shoulders, sometimes leaning on us to steady himself. ‘I wonder what life will be like now,’ I said to Lori. ‘The same,’ she said. ‘He tried stopping before, but it never lasted.’ ‘This time it will.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘It’s his present to me.”

Dysfunctional FamilyThe Glass Castle
Book:The Glass Castle
Create image

“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.”

BlackNaturalMorningRocksRedHorseWake UpBlueAweLakesWakingYellowDozenLayersEvery MorningCliffsCathedralsWaterfallsAwe InspiringCreviceWaking Up Every MorningRainstormsAfter The RainRed And YellowSandstone
Book:Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
Create image

“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".”

NeedsFallBehindsTroubleCollegeMomCoupleHusbandAppealsPackagesLandingFall BackGoing To CollegeGood HusbandFailed Marriage
Book:Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
Create image

“I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected o the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. 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. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”

IfsKnowsWorldHumansSaidMomentsAnswersFireDogDadHotConnectedBurningRelatedHotelBurnedToesToiletsHot DogFire Burning
Book:The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Create image

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.”

GivingSaidWantedHouseGrowsWaterStruggleSawsNiceGrowingTreeSpecialWindMomProtectTinyTallDestroyingOne TimeOld TreesSaplings
Book:The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Create image