Tara Westover

"In seeking knowledge, I lost my family, but I found myself."

"I was raised to believe that the world was my enemy."

"The greatest power I ever had was the power to question."

"My education was not just academic—it was a complete rewiring of my mind."

"I chose to be educated, and in doing so, I chose freedom."

"I learned that the mind is capable of believing almost anything if given no alternative."

"My greatest act of courage was walking away from everything I had ever known."

"The person I am now would never recognize the person I was."

"I was educated by my struggle, not despite it."

"I was not prepared for college, in any sense of the word."

"Dad's letters had convinced me that I was not safe in the world."

"I had never been to school. I had never been to a doctor."

"Everything I had worked for, I owed to music."

"I began to understand that Shawn's abuse had a function."

"The skill I was learning was a very specific one: how to exist in a different world and return to the old one."

"I had started a new life, and it couldn't have been more different from my old one."

"Knowledge had changed the way I understood the world."

"I was not the person my father had tried to make me."

"Somehow I had to find a way to be myself."

"Education had become the most important thing to me."

"I realized that I had always been in control of my own mind."

"My father had raised me to distrust the world, but I had learned to trust myself."

"I had to choose between my family and my life."

"Memory is not a neutral tool."

"I grew up the youngest of nine children."

"My father believed the end times were near."

"I learned to read by myself, or I didn't learn at all."

"My mother believed in the healing power of plants."

"I had never heard of the Holocaust."

"Shawn was my older brother, but he was not safe."