Educated

"Change was possible, but only if I was willing to change myself."

"I learned more from books than from my family."

"My father had tried to teach me to fear reality."

"I was alone, but I was free."

"The past has a way of catching up with you."

"I had to learn to trust my own mind."

"My family believed that education corrupted the soul."

"I was building a new identity, piece by piece."

"Everything changed when I left home."

"I had never been allowed to be a child."

"Education was the key to my freedom."

"My father's world had no room for questions."

"I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew."

"I was learning that the truth was more complicated than I had been taught."

"My education had separated me from my family."

"I had been taught to fear the outside world, but I had to learn to live in it."

"University was supposed to be the place where I could become someone new."

"Every book I read was a window into a different world."

"I decided to teach myself enough to pass the entrance exam."

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

"I had never heard of the Holocaust."

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

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

"My father believed the end times were near."

"I grew up the youngest of nine children."

"Memory is not a neutral tool."

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

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

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

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