Humorous Wedding Speech From 'The Glass Castle'

Andrew: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I am Andrew Denton and welcome to tonight’s episode of Enough Rope. My guest this evening is a woman with quite a story. Her head-spinning memoir, The Glass Castle, graphically captures horrors of the unconventional, poverty-stricken upbringing she and her siblings had to endure at the hands of their deeply dysfunctional parents. However, through the her crazy and wild recounts of her childhood her inspiring strength stands out and has inspired thousands of people whilst sitting on the New York Times Best Seller list for 261 weeks. May we please welcome to the stage, a lady of great courage, resilience and honesty, Jeannette Walls.
Jeannette: Thanks for having me, it is an honour to be here today.

However, throughout my life I have learnt to be resilient, ignoring what people think about me in order to survive in the world. Despite of my parents and because of them I grew up tough and stronger. I mean, I grew up with dirty unwashed hair, ripped hand-me-down clothes from Lori and hardly ever showered (Walls, J. 2005. p.31) so I have become accustomed to people’s judgement (slight laugh). My dad often referred to our family as “survivors” (Walls, J. 2005. Pg 56) and he was right, times would get so tough we would need to scavenge for food. Although I have matured now and have some source of security I no longer need to do that, thank god! (laughs) I have realised fighting for what you want is a part of

It was like a completely different world however it was something I knew I had to do. When I got my job as a gossip columnist, I saw it as a key out and no one knew who I was or where I had came from. This position is what gave me confidence in knowing I was good at writing and once I had proven myself I fought and fought to never give them a chance to doubt me.
Andrew: Your parents certainly had an interesting philosophy regarding parenting. How much did your dads alcoholism and your mothers resentment towards you and your sibling impact the way you have dealt with the world over the years?
Jeanette: Clearly, they were not your typical parents at all and despite my cheery demeanour, my parent’s choices often affected me deeply and painfully without even realising. They rarely valued the same things I did, such as my love for my cat, Tinkerbell, who they made me through away and told me “to not be so sentimental” (Walls, J. 2005. p. 19). From this point my ambivalence changed dramatically as I matured and began to grow resentment towards my parents which triggered me to live a life that was more independent and