American Rose Quotes

“Mother was,' June thought, 'a beautiful little ornament that was damaged.' Her broken edges cut her daughters in ways both emotional and physical, and only sharpened with age.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“Well, just remember this. When my ma got me, she picked what she wanted. But when your ma got you, she had to take what she got.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“Her mother was by turns tender and pathetic and terrifying, broken in a way that no one, in that time or place, had any idea how to fix.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“He was just a taker. She was a taker in her way too. They were taking each other, and they loved each other for that. -June Havoc”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“And truth is malleable, something to be bent or stretched or made to disappear, but direct lies always find the path back to the one who tells them.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“He spent all of his twenty-three years operating at only one speed and in one direction, furious and forward, convinced that a collision could only improve the ride.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“Later, the sisters would remember things differently, as sisters do, old grudges and misunderstandings refracting each memory, bending them in opposite directions.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“Sweet? Submissive? May as well be a housewife … it dims my luster, makes me resemble others—that’s the worst thing that could happen.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“by a new burlesque trick: fish swivels affixed to her pasties. The mechanism allowed Finnell to pinwheel her tassels in any direction, from any position, at any speed,”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“Start thinkin’ about what you’re goin’ to be tomorrow—not what you were yesterday.” For”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“The only time I’d ever marry again is if someone beat on my door and said, “I have $27 million and I’ll live elsewhere.” –JOAN BLONDELL On”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“pausing to consider your place meant you were already far behind.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“discover what could make you famous, and then proclaim that it already has.”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“he insisted, since he’d earned something more useful than a GED—a GE, his “gutter education.” He”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“Big Lady, Rose, Louise, and June knew nothing of their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. “Of course, he was only a man,” June said, “so it didn’t much matter.” Big”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

“It was a fairy tale, Hovick style, in which drama trumped veracity and the women always won. On”
― Karen Abbott, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee