The Best The Glass Castle Quotes

Rex: What does an investment banker use as birth control? His personality.

Jeannette: We were never a family, Mom. We were a nightmare.

Jeannette: [sighs] My parents are squatting in an abandoned building on the Lower East Side.
David: Jeanette...
Jeannette: They were homeless before that for three years before that, which was pretty much how they raised us. My dad is not developing a technology for bituminous coal but he could tell you anything you want to know about it. He is the smartest man I know. He is also a drunk.
[inhales]
Jeannette: never finishes what he starts and can be extremely cruel. But he dreams bigger than anyone I've ever met. And he never tries to be somebody that he's not. He never wanted me to either.
[Exhales]
Jeannette: I'm sorry, but I have to leave.
David: Go.

Jeannette: When it comes to my family, let me do the lying.

[first lines]
Rex: [narrating] Most city folk live in fancy apartments, but their air's so polluted, they can't even see the stars. We'd have to be out of our minds to trade places with any of 'em.

Jeannette: Do you think... Erma ever did something to Dad?
Rose: Like what?
Jeannette: Like what she did to Brian.
Rose: You can't think about things like that. It'll make you crazy.
Jeannette: ...
[Meets Rex in a bar]
Jeannette: Dad... I'm sorry about Erma.
Rex: Whenever it's time to go, you go.
Jeannette: I'm not talking about that... "it's impossible to breathe when you're drowning in shit."
Rex: ...You still believe in your old man?

Jeannette: He's never gonna change. You have to leave him.
[pause]
Rose: I can't.

Jeannette: I feel so... fortunate.

Jeannette: You did all this for me?
Rex: Since when is it wrong for a father to take care of his little girl?

Rex: [Rex exposes Jeanette's burned stomach] There, how's that feel?
Young: It's so ugly, Dad, I look like a demon.
Rex: There's nothing ugly about you. You hear me? One day I promise you you're gonna look at this as just another side of how strong you are. You're a Walls, Mountain Goat. And we ain't like other people. We got a fire burning in our bellies. And that there is goddamn proof of it. Now... this knife is especially designed to hunt demons. It's very sharp. Don't take it out unless you see him. You can borrow it for the night. You know, all monsters are the same. They like to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run. I love you, Mountain Goat.

Rex: You learn from living, everything else is a lie.

Rex: I never built the glass castle.
Jeannette: No. But it was fun to plan it.