Laurie Halse Anderson Quotes

You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.

I want to make a memorial for our turkey. Never has a bird been so tortured to provide such a lousy dinner.

Don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself.

Why are you being so mean?" "Friends tell friends the truth." "yeah, but not to hurt, to help.

Can't escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.

So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.

Some adults would rather pretend that bad things dont exist than to talk about them.

Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazy activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become an adult. I hope it's worth it.

I am almost a real girl the entire drive home. I went to a diner. I drank hot chocolate and ate french fries. Talked to a guy for a while. Laughed a couple of times. A little like ice-skating for the first time, wobbly, but I did it.

I am locked into the mirror and there is no door out.

This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you've never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help you find the wind.

There is no safer. There’s not even safe, never has been.

We swore sacred oaths to be strong and to save the planet and to be friends forever.

Death is funny, when you think about it. Everybody does it, but nobody knows how, exactly how.

Write about the emotions you fear the most.

Everybody told me to be a man. Nobody told me how.

It is easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.

My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. How else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddesses on Monday?

I know my head isn't screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closest is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.

I would never be popular. I didn't want to be; I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.

In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.

It's easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.

Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them

I'm learning how to taste everything.

The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don't offer up anything. Don't explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don't accidentally put your head in a noose.

We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.

And then a new screen, one I had never seen before, never even heard of popped up. It gave me a choice. I could become the new Lord of Darkness myself, or I could take a gamble and be reincarnated. I chose wisely.

The dead do walk and haunt and crawl into your bed at night. Ghosts sneak into your head when you're not looking. Stars line up and volcanoes birth out bits of glass that foretell the future. Poison berries make girls stronger, but sometimes kill them. If you howl at the moon and swear on your blood, anything you desire will be yours. Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.

Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers more important than images? Who decides this? Does algebra move you to tears? Can plural possessives express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!

Oppressive bastards, think they own the place. I told them that karma's going to kick their asses.

This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values.

Why not draw naked guys, just to be fair? Naked women is art, naked guys a no-no, I bet. Probably because most painters are men.

I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs. Nobody can make it stop.

I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page

I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone to sit next to. A predator approaches: gray jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head. Probably a social studies teacher, hired to coach a blood sport.

Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.

I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. Don't get me wrong, I like reading. But some books should come with warning labels: Caution: contains characters and plots guaranteed to induce sleepiness. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery after ingesting more than one chapter. Has been known to cause blindness, seizures and a terminal loathing of literature. Should only be taken under the supervision of a highly trained English teacher. Preferably one who grades on the curve.

I don't say anything and I feel awful. I tell somebody and I feel worse. I'm having trouble finding a middle ground.

I reach for funny books all the time to help me get through life.

I wish America would stop judging and criticizing teens and instead, try to understand the battles they have to fight every day.

I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.

Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

I need a new friend. I need a friend, period. Not a true friend, nothing close or share clothes or sleepover giggle giggle yak yak. Just a pseudo-friend, disposable friend. Friend as accessory. Just so I don't feel or look so stupid.

I understood what triggered her earthquakes, most of them.

Gossip is the foul smell from the Devil's backside.

I am getting better at smiling when people expect it.