- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
Tara Westover Quotes
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- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
I had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental, only cyclical. The same sun appeared each morning, swept over the valley, and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted in the spring.
- Father
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- Nov 07, 2020
I had been raised in the mountains of Idaho by a father who distrusted many of the institutions that people take for granted - public education, doctors and hospitals, and the government.
- Brother
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- Nov 07, 2020
My older brother bought textbooks and was able to teach himself enough to go to college. When I was 16, he returned and told me to do the same thing.
- Enough
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- Nov 07, 2020
I taught myself algebra and a little grammar, and somehow I scraped a high enough score on the ACT to be admitted to Brigham Young University, even though I had no formal education.
- Dad
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- Nov 07, 2020
My family always spent the warm months bottling fruit for storage, which Dad said we'd need in the Days of Abomination.
- Bad People
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think for people who are inside these relationships that are really hard to leave, there is always a compelling reason to stay. It's not that they are wholly bad people.
- Attended
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- Nov 07, 2020
Because I never attended elementary schools of any kind, I missed most of the books that were popular with other kids my age. There was an exception, however, which was 'Harry Potter.' My grandmother gave me the first book when I was about 13, and I read it, then read all the rest.
- High
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- Nov 07, 2020
I didn't read much in high school, maybe because I didn't go to high school. Instead, I worked.
- First
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- Nov 07, 2020
When I was 17, I went to Brigham Young University. That was the first time I had set foot in a classroom.
- Past
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- Nov 07, 2020
At BYU, I discovered history, then historiography. I became fascinated with the study of historians and historical trends, with the idea that the way we remember the past changes and shifts with our own preoccupations.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
When you write, you are alone. It can be a bit of a shock later to discover that people have read what you've written!
- Forgiveness
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- Nov 07, 2020
Forgiveness isn't just the absence of anger. I think it's also the presence of self-love, when you actually begin to value yourself.
- Books
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- Nov 07, 2020
I had access to books, and I could read... but that more foundational, basic historical awareness, I didn't have any of that.
- Getting
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that when memoir goes wrong, it goes wrong from too much memory, too much detail. It's about clearing all that away and just getting to the story.
- Different Ideas
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- Nov 07, 2020
We think about education as a stepping stone into a higher socio-economic class, into a better job. And it does do those things. But I don't think that's what it really is. I experienced it as getting access to different ideas and perspectives and using them to construct my own mind.
- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
My parents would say to me, 'You can teach yourself anything better than someone else can teach it to you.' That was the whole ethos of my family.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think a lot of people have grown up with the idea that they can't learn things themselves. They think they need an institution to provide them with knowledge and teach them how to do things. I couldn't disagree more.
- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
I felt like I needed to come to terms with the decision I'd made to let go of my family. What do you do when you want to be loyal to your family but you feel that loyalty to them is in conflict somehow with loyalty to yourself?
- Feel
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- Nov 07, 2020
I felt like we had stories about family loyalty; I didn't feel like we had stories about what to do when you felt that loyalty to your family was in conflict with loyalty to yourself.
- Loved
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- Nov 07, 2020
The things about my childhood that I really loved the most, writing about those things was hard because I knew they would never happen again.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
We'd had books in my house growing up, but we had never had anything like lectures. I had never written an essay for my mother. I had never taken an exam. Because I was working a lot as a kid, I just hadn't elected to read that much.
- Children
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- Nov 07, 2020
So, I was born and raised the youngest of seven children on this really beautiful mountain in Southern Idaho. But my dad had some radical beliefs. And because of those beliefs, we were isolated. So I was never allowed to go to school or to the doctor.
- Know
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- Nov 07, 2020
During my first semester of college, I raised my hand in a class and asked the professor to define a word I didn't know. The word was holocaust, and I had to ask because, until that moment, I had never heard of it.
- Feel
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- Nov 07, 2020
I don't really feel like I belong anywhere.
- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
Learning in our family was entirely self-directed.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
I read a handful of memoirs to get a sense of what the genre meant. I needed to learn the fundamentals of the craft. I had never written a word of narrative. What is a tense shift, what is point of view? I didn't know any of it.
- Love Is
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- Nov 07, 2020
We think love is noble, and in some ways, it is. But in some ways, it isn't. Love is just love. And sometimes people do terrible things because of it.
- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
I didn't know if I would ever reconcile with my family, and I needed to believe that I could forgive, regardless.
- Lot
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- Nov 07, 2020
There was a lot of beauty in my childhoood.
- Childhood
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- Nov 07, 2020
It was a quality of my childhood that everything had these two sides. Even though things could be really beautiful and peaceful one moment, they could also be a bit chaotic or maybe terrifying in another.
- Birth Certificate
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- Nov 07, 2020
I didn't even have a birth certificate until I was 9 years old, which meant that, according to the state of Idaho and the federal government, I just didn't exist.
- Dog
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- Nov 07, 2020
I get up when I feel like getting up. That's the deal I've made with myself: I can stay in bed as long as my dog's bladder holds. The other half of that deal is that once the dog is walked, the very next thing I do is write. It's mechanical. It's programming, very nearly brainwashing.
- Book
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- Nov 07, 2020