Hang the Moon Quotes

“Sometimes the so-called law is nothing but the haves telling the have-nots to stay in their place.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“She also lent me her books, saying reading was a way of traveling the world, getting to know people you'll never meet, also traveling through time, getting to know people who lived long ago.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“When you can’t solve a problem and you can’t run from it and you can’t hide from it, you got to make it the other man’s problem.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“I feel very tired. Is that all people will ever think when they see Aunt Faye? People who’ve never gone without find it easy to pass judgment on those who’ve struggled.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“teachers and parents can’t change children and shouldn’t try. What they can do is bring out children’s strengths.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Laws made by people far away don’t matter all that much. What matters are the laws made by the people right here, the ones taking care of you.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“SOME SAY THAT WHAT doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but that isn’t always so. Many a time, what doesn’t kill you leaves you broken and crippled, unable to fight the next fight, or sometimes it leaves a wound in your heart so deep and ugly that it never truly heals, leaves you bitter and angry, unable to forgive the world for its cruelty.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“I thought being in charge meant I was beholden to no one. What it truly means is that I am beholden to everyone.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“so to be a good boss you have to be steadfast and tireless, generous and kind, a glad-hander and an organ grinder, but you also have to have a hide thick as shoe leather, you have to be calculating, devious, treacherous, cruel, a real hard-ass, and, when it’s necessary, truly cold-blooded. And you trust no one. But on the off chance that you do find one man you can trust, you do whatever the hell you have to do to keep that fellow.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Wearing white gloves is a way of letting everyone know you don’t have to get your hands dirty working but instead have leisure time that you spend on clubs and committees and societies. Such airs are of the utmost importance to some town women—the wives of the judge, the bank president, the undertaker, the clergy—who are eager to set themselves apart from women of the hollows.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“We’re a family. There are two kinds of family, those you’re born into and those you put together from pieces that don’t go anywhere else, and this is one of those families. Five of us now. Like mismatched buttons that still keep your shirt closed.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“in fact there’s nothing thicker and lazier than some taffy puller’s Tidewater drawl, only he says it in a Tidewater accent—nothin thickuh and laziuh than some taffy-pulluh’s Tahdwatuh drawl.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“So many women are natural mamas, but the harder I try, the more I see that I’m not one of them.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“People who’ve never gone without find it easy to pass judgment on those who’ve struggled.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Quality? Hell, the only time our whiskey aged was when we got a flat tire.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“You don’t always kill the things you love. You do everything you can to hold on to them. And sometimes—when you’re standing in the right place and your heart’s willing and a little baby comes hurling down at you from out of the sky—sometimes you even save the things you love.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“You weren’t a son, but you are everything you ought to be. You are wanted. You are loved.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“My few memories of Mama are like brightly colored birds you see out of the corner of your eye that are gone when you turn to look.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Quality? Hell, the only time our whiskey aged was when we got a flat tire. Rex Walls, the author’s father, who ran bootleg liquor in the late 1940s and early 1950s”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“There are people like Eddie, with plenty of book smarts but no people smarts.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“If a woman wants to get ahead in this world, she marries well and mark my words, Sallie, no man worth the clothes on his back is going to let a woman outshine him.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“to the fat cats who bribe them.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“I don’t understand why so many people walk when they could skip instead”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“She also told me that teachers don’t know everything, but as long as they stay a step ahead of the students, the students think they do.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“She also lent me her books, saying reading was a way of traveling the world, getting to know people you’ll never meet, also traveling through time, getting to know people who lived long ago.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Because sometimes men don’t take care of the women. And that’s why we women need our jobs.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Any little girl whose mama disappears will always have a hole in her heart that nothing will ever completely fill.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Besides, I’m not taking anything that isn’t mine, not forcing folk to do anything they don’t want to do, just helping out the people of Claiborne County who through no fault of their own are in an awful bind. Obey the law and starve. Or break the law and eat. Not a lot to ponder there.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“Back in Hatfield, watching farmers trying to coax a crop out of thin soil only to see it washed away in a heavy rain. I used to think what a fine thing it would be to have a paycheck job—you show up, work your hours, and at the end of the month, doesn’t matter what the weather is, you get your money. Now that I have one of those jobs, I see it’s not the rain that’s your worry, but the whims of the boss man. Some of the times, the things you’re asked to do are foolish. Leaves you rolling your eyes, but it can be done. It’s when the boss asks you to do something you know to be wrong and you do it anyways. That sort of work whittles away at the soul.”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon

“I’m”
― Jeannette Walls, Hang the Moon