Educated: Noteworthy Quotations

Ain’t nothin’ funnier than real life, I tell you that

… the odds are better if you rely only on yourself

I knew a scholarship was comically out of reach

I don’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to get a decent education as a child

It didn’t belong. It couldn’t be taught to belong.

Tara’s Father

I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.

… never again would I allow myself to be made a foot soldier in a conflict I did not understand.

It was a long shot, but I was the queen of long shots.

It’s comforting to think the defect is mine, because that means it is under my power.

To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else’s.

While my father and brother shouted, ignorance kept me silent: I couldn’t defend myself, because I didn’t understand the accusation.

It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you…

Curiosity is a luxury reserved for the financially secure: my mind was absorbed with more immediate concerns, such as the exact balance of my bank account, who I owed how much, and whether there was anything in my room I could sell for ten or twenty dollars.

But when I’d seen those courses in the catalog, and read their titles aloud, I had felt something infinite, and I wanted a taste of that infinity.

My love of music, and my desire to study it, had been compatible with my idea of what a woman is. My love of history and politics and world affairs was not. And yet they called to me.

The wind is just wind. You could withstand these gusts on the ground, so you can withstand them in the air. There is no difference. Except the difference you make in your head.

I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it.

She was just a cockney in a nice dress. Until she believed in herself. Then it didn’t matter what dress she wore.

If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind.

The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you.