“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.”

American author and journalist

Jeannette Walls is an American author and journalist, best known for her memoir The Glass Castle and for her work as a former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com. She has 95 quotes on the site. The Glass Castle, published in 2005, recounts the unsettled, nomadic childhood she wrote about in memoir form. Walls has also been recognized with the Alex Award and the Christopher Award in 2006, and her writing is closely associated with personal narrative and family memory.