Tara Westover

Learning in our family was entirely self-directed.

— Tara Westover

Academic writing is such a different way of writing.

— Tara Westover

Publishing a book is a very different thing than writing one.

— Tara Westover

I might just not be a big-city bug.

— Tara Westover

There was a lot of beauty in my childhoood.

— Tara Westover

There's a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain.

— Tara Westover

“You can’t be a person without a birthday, they seemed to say.”

— Tara Westover

BYU was a really positive place for me.

— Tara Westover

I used to roof hay barns for my father. It's dangerous work. Writing is much better.

— Tara Westover

In families like mine, there is no crime worse than telling the truth.

— Tara Westover

I have a theory that all abuse, no matter what kind of abuse it is, is foremost an assault on the mind.

— Tara Westover

When you abuse someone, you limit their perspective, and you trap them in your view of them or your view of the…

— Tara Westover

I think it's a belief that you can learn something. That's something that I really value from the upbringing I got.

— Tara Westover

If you want to live a miserable life, making your life all about other people is the way to do it.

— Tara Westover

I adore Toni Morrison. I think we would all be better writers if we read more of her.

— Tara Westover

Forgiveness isn't just the absence of anger. I think it's also the presence of self-love, when you actually begin to value yourself.

— Tara Westover

We think love is noble, and in some ways, it is. But in some ways, it isn't. Love is just love. And…

— Tara Westover

I had been raised in the mountains of Idaho by a father who distrusted many of the institutions that people take for…

— Tara Westover

Anger can be a good thing. It's a mechanism that your brain uses to get you out of situations that are bad…

— Tara Westover

My mother was a midwife and a herbalist, so we would go on these long walks, looking for yarrow or rosehips or…

— Tara Westover

Although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. I could stand with…

— Tara Westover

I have books I like very much, but I don't think there are any books that everyone should read. I prefer a…

— Tara Westover

I had to be - I was in school for probably three or four years before I began taking courses in history…

— Tara Westover

I think if you're going to abuse someone, you really have to convince them of two things. First, you have to normalise…

— Tara Westover

Anyone who grows up reading the Bible for spiritual reasons, you get accustomed to reading things that are too much for you,…

— Tara Westover

I get up when I feel like getting up. That's the deal I've made with myself: I can stay in bed as…

— Tara Westover

We think about education as a stepping stone into a higher socio-economic class, into a better job. And it does do those…

— Tara Westover

Because I never attended elementary schools of any kind, I missed most of the books that were popular with other kids my…

— Tara Westover

They were a very good form for me - the way a short story has to be designed in order to function,…

— Tara Westover

My family was, I think, a bit more radical than most Mormons, especially on the question of gender. So in my mind,…

— Tara Westover

I think, initially, my rebellion, my rebellion of going to college when my dad would have liked me to stay home and…

— Tara Westover

I'm no longer religious, but the Bible fascinates me. Hardly anyone reads it anymore, but it's got everything: it's a book of…

— Tara Westover

“This moment would define my memory of that night, and of the many nights like it, for a decade. In it I…

— Tara Westover

An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.

— Tara Westover

I don't really feel like I belong anywhere.

— Tara Westover

“First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are.”

— Tara Westover

I think you can change your belief, but sometimes your behavior takes a lot longer.

— Tara Westover

All my father's stories were about our mountain, our valley, our jagged little patch of Idaho.

— Tara Westover

I have very non-eccentric hobbies. I like to read, to have dinner with friends, and junk out on TV like everybody else.

— Tara Westover

I didn't read much in high school, maybe because I didn't go to high school. Instead, I worked.

— Tara Westover