Top 160 Jeannette Walls Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When God closes a door, he opens a window, but it’s up to you to find it.”

— Jeannette Walls

2. “Optimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

— Jeannette Walls

3. “Teaching is a calling too. And I’ve always thought that teachers in their way are holy – angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.”

— Jeannette Walls

4. “Memoir is about handing over you life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it.”

— Jeannette Walls

5. “One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”

— Jeannette Walls

Featured in: Reading Quotes

6. “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim.”

— Jeannette Walls

7. “Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”

— Jeannette Walls

8. “A lady’s hair is her crowning glory.”

— Jeannette Walls

9. “I’m a big believer in luck – the harder you work, the luckier you become.”

— Jeannette Walls

10. “We’re stronger than we realize.”

— Jeannette Walls

11. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.”

— Jeannette Walls

12. “Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.”

— Jeannette Walls

13. “Life’s too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are.”

— Jeannette Walls

15. “Nobody’s perfect. We’re all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.”

— Jeannette Walls

16. “Books are my very favorite gift to give. If you give a book to someone and they really respond to it, you feel you’ve actually changed their life in some way.”

— Jeannette Walls

17. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

18. “Anyone who thinks he’s too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito.”

— Jeannette Walls

19. “I believe that everyone has some huge talent in them; the really lucky ones discover what it is.”

— Jeannette Walls

20. “Six months later, Maureen stabbed Mom.”

— Jeannette Walls

21. “Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.”

— Jeannette Walls

22. “Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, you’ll still have your stars.”

— Jeannette Walls

23. “You’re in a horse race but you’re thinking like a sheep. Sheep don’t win horse races.”

— Jeannette Walls

24. “All seasons have something to offer.”

— Jeannette Walls

25. “Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person’s life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body’s life.”

— Jeannette Walls

26. “To all families who, despite their scars, still find a way to love.”

— Jeannette Walls

27. “Too much hard luck can create a permanent meanness of spirit in any creature.”

— Jeannette Walls

28. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

29. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

30. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

Featured in: Fun Quotes

31. “That was the thing to remember about all monsters, They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.”

— Jeannette Walls

32. “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

33. “If you don’t think you’re hurt, then you aren’t.”

— Jeannette Walls

34. “But no matter how much planning you do, one tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction, can end it all in an instant.”

— Jeannette Walls

35. “I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn’t half bad to be in place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.”

— Jeannette Walls

36. “It’s so much of what art and creativity are, being able to confront your own demons. If you can do that, you can get through just about everything.”

— Jeannette Walls

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

— Jeannette Walls

38. “Sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better.”

— Jeannette Walls

39. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

40. “Once you’d resolved to go, there was nothing to it at all.”

— Jeannette Walls

41. “Then he pointed to the top of the fire, where the snapping yellow flames dissolved into an invisible shimmery heat that made the desert beyond seem to waver, like a mirage. Dad told us that zone was known in physics as the boundary between turbulence and order. “It’s a place where no rules apply, or at least they haven’t figured ’em out yet,” he said. “You-all got a little too close to it today.”

— Jeannette Walls

42. “If you had weak eyes, they needed exercise to get strong. Glasses were like crutches. They prevented people with feeble eyes from seeing the world on their own.”

— Jeannette Walls

Featured in: Strong Quotes

43. “A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the border between turbulence and order.”

— Jeannette Walls

44. “Mom asked me if I was okay. I shrugged and nodded. “Well, there you go”, she said. She said that sexual assault was a crime of perception. “If you don’t think you’re hurt, then you aren’t”, she said. “So many women make such a big deal out of these things. But you’re stronger then that”, she went back to her crossword puzzle.”

— Jeannette Walls

45. “When Dad wasn’t telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle.”

— Jeannette Walls

46. “Unlike diamonds, watches were practical. They were for people on the run, people with appointments to keep and schedules to meet.”

— Jeannette Walls

47. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

48. “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.”

— Jeannette Walls

49. “Just remember,” Mom said after examining the blisters, “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” “If that was true, I’d be Hercules by now,” Lori said.”

— Jeannette Walls

50. “Dark is a way and light is a place, Heaven that never was Nor will be ever is always true – Dylan Thomas, ‘Poem on His Birthday.”

— Jeannette Walls