13 Poignant Tara Westover Quotes from Educated

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Excerpt: From one of the most acclaimed books of our time, these 13 Tara Westover quotes from Educated are poignant, powerful, and well worth the read.

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Introduction: Completing the Puzzle of Our Identity

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

Tara Westover, Educated

We don’t come into this world already made—we come into this world ready to be made. We are not finished when we are born, we are born so that we can start. We are not a masterpiece that is revealed once born—we are a pile of puzzle pieces which reveal a masterpiece once assembled. If we truly want to understand who we are, this is the reality of our situation. Our identity is not just given—it’s a reward that has to be earned. And the process of assembling this puzzle isn’t simple nor is it easy.

First off, this isn’t your basic 100 piece puzzle that you can just whip together on a casual afternoon. This is one of the most complicated, intricate puzzles that you will ever have to assemble. And it’s a feat that only a few will ever see all the way through in their lifetime. It’s a puzzle that takes the utmost patience, persistence, self-discipline, and initiative—qualities that don’t come naturally to most and qualities that most never take the time to cultivate and habitualize.

And second, we are not born with complete puzzle sets. We are all given different starting pieces that might form an outline or give a basic impression—but that’s about it. The rest of the pieces are scattered throughout the world for us to find. Their location, fortunately, is no secret. They can be found in education, experience, connection, and introspection.

How can you find anything new about yourself without new experiences? How can you learn about your strengths, weaknesses, aptitudes, interests, potential—without education? How can you understand your emotions and innovate without connecting with others? How can you make sense of anything cycloning inside without moments of introspective attention? Each area gives clues about who we are (a puzzle piece) and helps reveal the overall picture of who we are. And each area left unexplored only leaves those clues hidden away.

This is the tragedy of a “sheltered” life; an isolated upbringing; being a part of an obtrusive or imposing culture: it keeps hidden from you—yourself. Keeping an open mind, exploring, conversing, interacting, and participating in the world isn’t just cliché advice—it’s essential advice. Our puzzle, once assembled, has the ability to unleash the full power of our spirit and can map out the entire rest of our lives. Without it, our puzzle remains incomplete and bare. And the result is that we might stay forever lost.

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The List: 13 Poignant Tara Westover Quotes from Educated

From one of the most acclaimed books of our time, these quotes from Educated are poignant, powerful, and provoking. The memoir recounts Tara Westover’s life as part of a survivalist family and shares an incredibly story of how she went from being kept out of school to earning her PhD from Cambridge University.

The book eloquently weaves together complex themes like being told who you are versus realizing who you are; letting others control your life versus taking control of your own; conditional love versus unconditional love; and navigating the complicated landscape of breaking free from an overbearing, controlling, toxic family.

Below, you will find our collection of quotes from Educated that we thought delivered the most insight. Spend some time with them and let us know what you think. If you haven’t already, we highly recommend you give Westover’s book a read in full. It may very well help you piece together the puzzle of your own identity as well. Good luck and enjoy!

“It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“When I was a child, I waited for my mind to grow, for my experiences to accumulate and my choices to solidify, taking shape into the likeness of a person. That person, or that likeness of one, had belonged. I was of that mountain, the mountain that had made me. It was only as I grew older that I wondered if how I had started is how I would end—if the first shape a person takes is their only true shape.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“The accident would always make me think of the Apache women, and of all the decisions that go into making a life—the choices people make, together and on their own, that combine to produce any single event. Grains of sand, incalculable, pressing into sediment, then rock.”

Tara Westover, Educated (Page 40)

“The seed of curiosity had been planted; it needed nothing more than time and boredom to grow. Sometimes, when I was stripping copper from a radiator or throwing the five hundredth chunk of steel into the bin, I’d find myself imagining the classrooms where Tyler was spending his days. My interest grew more acute with every deadening hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I should enroll in the public school.”

Tara Westover, Educated (Page 60)

“But sometimes I think we choose our illnesses, because they benefit us in some way.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“I shed my guilt when I accepted my decision on its own terms, without endlessly prosecuting old grievances, without weighing his sins against mine. Without thinking of my father at all. I learned to accept my decision for my own sake, because of me, not because of him. Because I needed it, not because he deserved it.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“’You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them,’ she says now. ‘You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.’”

Tara Westover, Educated

“Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“I had a thousand dollars in my bank account. It felt strange just to think that, let alone say it. A thousand dollars. Extra. That I did not immediately need. It took weeks for me to come to terms with this fact, but as I did, I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”

Tara Westover, Educated (Page 207)

“Curiosity is a luxury for the financially secure.”

Tara Westover, Educated

“This is a magical place,” I said. “Everything shines here.” “You must stop yourself from thinking like that,” Dr. Kerry said, his voice raised. “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. Not in Cambridge. In you. You are gold. And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself—even gold appears dull in some lighting—but that is the illusion. And it always was.”

Tara Westover, Educated

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Picture Quotes from Educated to Share:

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If you enjoyed these quotes from Educated, you should read Tara Westover’s book in full. It comes highly recommended: