Educated

by Tara Westover

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

“You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you.

There was a sting in this arithmetic: in knowing that in the divine calculus of heaven, one man could balance the equation for countless women.

There was a kind of symbiosis in their relationship to these grand places: they gave life to the ancient architecture by making it the backdrop of their discourse, by refusing to worship at its altar as if it were a dead thing.

What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon; it was me.

Guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people.