Tara Westover

“I didn't know if I would ever reconcile with my family, and I needed to believe that I could forgive, regardless.”

“I had access to books, and I could read... but that more foundational, basic historical awareness, I didn't have any of that.”

“I choose not to see my parents because I value myself - and they didn't value me or my mind.”

“If you want to live a miserable life, making your life all about other people is the way to do it.”

“For a long time, I didn't think I had the right to walk away from my family.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I was 17 the first time I set foot in a classroom, but 10 years later, I would graduate from Cambridge with a Ph.D. 'Educated' is the story of how I came by my education. It is also the story of how I lost my family.”

“There is a certain panic, at least if you're raised Mormon, to being single at 31. But what they don't tell you is that it can also be kinda great.”

“I have very non-eccentric hobbies. I like to read, to have dinner with friends, and junk out on TV like everybody else.”

“I think it's a belief that you can learn something. That's something that I really value from the upbringing I got.”

“I don't really feel like I belong anywhere.”

“I have a theory that all abuse, no matter what kind of abuse it is, is foremost an assault on the mind.”

“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.”

“You can miss someone every day and still be glad you don't have to see them.”

“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.”

“I knew how to write like an academic, so I knew how to write academic papers and essays and things. But the things that are great for an essay are unbearable in narrative writing.”

“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.”

“Psychologically, when you hear something a number of times, you start to believe it.”