Why do you think that Tara Westover chose the VirginiaWoolf epigraph at the beginning of her story?

Tara Westover chose to use an epigraph by Virginia Woolf because the epigraph was able to express a very important point in the book and in the message that Tara Westover wished to convey to the reader.

Although you haven't shown it, the above question refers to “Educated” by Tara Westover, a book in which she writes her memoirs and uses an epigraph by Virginia Woolf, to reinforce the importance of remembering the past and recognizing its impact on the present.

By reading this book, we can see that:

With that, we can conclude that the epigraph of Virginia Woolf is directly related to the message that Westover wants to pass on to the readers and for that reason, this epigraph was used.

You can find more information about what an epigraph is at the link below:

Virginia Woolf was an English author born in 1882. She was one of the first writers to use the narrative technique known as stream of consciousness. Woolf is quoted often in today's world. One of her quotes is the one mentioned above:

"... the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only the past."

Many authors, such as Tara Westover, use this quote in their own work. It is likely that Woolf was attempting to express the concept that "hindsight is 20/20" or something similar to this. This means that the past can only be appreciated because with the past comes memories that hold emotions.