This quotation sums up the book for me. It is about the choice and the cost of following our own truth:
“I will offer, one final time, to give you a blessing,” he said. The blessing was a mercy. He was offering me the same terms of surrender he had offered my sister. I imagine what a relief it must have been for her, to realize she could trade her reality – the one she shared with me – for his. How grateful she must have felt to pay such a modest price. I could not judge her for her choice, but in that moment I knew I could not choose it for myself. 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 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.” From Educated by Tara Westover, 2018