Laurie Halse Anderson Quotations

We have to acknowledge that adolescence is that time of transition where we begin to introduce to children that life isn't pretty, that there are difficult things, there are hard situations, it's not fair. Bad things happen to good people.

If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.

I am super proud of being an American, but we fail our veterans every day.

It's bad timing, but a lot of kids become teenagers just as their parents are hitting their mid-life crisis. So everybody's miserable and confused and seeking that new sense of identity.

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

Some adults would rather pretend that bad things don't exist than to talk about them.

That can be the most painstaking aspect of being a teen, figuring out what the world really looks like. If you find someone in a book, you know you're not alone and that's what's so comforting about books.

I've dealt with depression my entire life, on and off, which makes me the perfect author for teenage readers.

I think how veterans are treated in our country is an abomination. We don't have the draft any more, which is why so many soldiers come from working-class - rather than middle- or high-income families. Those wealthier families aren't affected, so they're not agitating for change.

I'm finally watching 'Mad Men.' As a child of the '60s, I can't believe how old everything looks! I am the age of baby Eugene.

Sometimes when I find myself very irritated about a topic, I know it's my next book.

You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bones? Sometimes when I'm writing, I can feel my bones vibrating because I'll have a thought or I'll have a character's voice in my head, and that's when I know I'm on the right track.

The feedback I get is that my books are honest. I don't sugar-coat anything. Life is really hard.

I think maybe I might have to do what some other authors do, which is do a variation on my name, just to send readers the message that, 'Yep, this is me, but this is a different part of me. So brace yourself.'

We're good at taking care of little kids, and spend a lot of energy teaching them things like how to read. But when kids get as tall as their parents and can look them in the eyes, we tend to drop the ball - at a time they most need a loving consistent community of adults, be it parents, aunts, uncles, or others.

Each reader has to find her or his own message within a book.

I don't reread my books after they're published, because it's agony.

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

Sometimes things just fall out of your head on the paper, and if you're smart, you learn not to touch them.

I've written in every imaginable location; a repurposed closet, the kitchen table, the bleachers while my kids had basketball practice, the front seat of the car when they were at soccer. In airports. On trains. In the break room when I was supposed to be wolfing down dinner. In the back of classrooms when I was supposed to be paying attention.

This is my one beef with Hollywood: It's great for movie sales, but they've created this fiction for us that, when you have a hard thing in your life, it's going to get fixed, and then your life will be awesome! Forever!

We've fallen down on our responsibility to our children by somehow creating this world where they're surrounded by images of sexuality; and yet, we as adults struggle to talk to kids honestly about sex, the rules of dignity and consent.

I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down.

Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend - trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch - perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.

Having a friend made everything else suck less.

Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say nothing. I am nothing.

Having to parent your mother or father is a challenge that way too many teens have to deal with. Teens whose parents are dealing with substance abuse, financial hardship, job loss, mental illness and divorce deserve our love, support, and compassion. I wish America would stop judging and criticizing teens and instead, try to understand the battles they have to fight every day.

I nod like I’m listening,like we’re communicating, and she never knows the difference.

The constitution does not recognize different classes of citizenship based on time spent living in the country. I am a citizen, with the same rights as your son, or you. As a citizen, and as a student, I am protesting the tone of this lesson as racist, intolerant, and xenophobic.

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

If I ever form a clan, we'll be the anti-cheerleaders and walk under the bleacher forming mild acts of mayhem.

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.

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

Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don't express themselves, they die on piece at a time.

Picasso.” He whispers like a priest. “Picasso. Who saw the truth. Who painted the truth, molded it, ripped from the earth with two angry hands.

I inscribe three lines, hush hush hush, into my skin. Ghosts trickle out.

I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.

Memory cuts both ways; it can either provide you with tremendous strength and a foundation to carry you through your life, or it can be a demon that just ruins your present and your future because you can’t let go of the past.

Used to be that my whole body was my canvas-hot cuts licking my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs....

Bologna girl, that's me.

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We're reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones. It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break -- these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scarlet letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward?

I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.

I doubt trees are ever told to 'be the screwed-up ninth-grader.'

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.

Principal Principal: Where's your late pass, mister? Errant Student: I'm on my way to get one now. PP: But you can't be in the hall without a pass. ES: I know, I'm so upset. That's why I need to hurry, so I can get a pass. Principal Principal pauses with a look on his face like Daffy Duck's when Bugs is pulling a fast one. PP: Well, hurry up, then, and get that pass.

I swallowed the fear. It’s always there– fear– and if you don’t stay on top of it, you’ll drown. I swallowed again and stood tall, shoulders broad, arms loose. I was balanced, ready to move. My body said, “Yeah, you’re bigger and stronger, but if you touch this, I will hurt you.

They say they have noticed me drawing. I almost tell them right then and there. They noticed.

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.

She offered herself to the big, bad wolf and didn't scream when he took the first bite.

I smile and play pretend through the Morning Show in the kitchen.

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.

They mean hot like 'I'm too good for you I got my own money don't be frontin' me.' You're more like 'Be my boyfriend I'll make you cookies come meet my dad ' know what I mean

A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.

This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?

Rumors are spread by jealous people

It made me strong.I took a step back, near my whole self in the mirror.I pushed back my shoulders and raised my chin, my back straight as an arrow.

I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with a S maybe, S for silent, S for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame.

Because I am still a little girl who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and you.

Did you read last nights assignments?" Say "yes'" and get hammered again. Say "no'" and the same thing would happen.

Dead girl walking” the boys say in the halls. “Tell us your secrets” the girls whisper, one toilet to another. "I am that girl. I am the spaces between my thighs, daylight shinning through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

I sit at a table close to his desk. Ivy is in this class. She sits by the door. I keep staring at her, trying to make her look at me. That happens in movies--people can feel it when oother people stare at them and they just have to turn around and say something. Either Ivy has a great force field, or my lazer vision isn't very strong....

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays.

When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know.

She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so...I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave it to her.

I scared myself, because once you've thought long and hard enough about doing something that is colossally stupid, you feel like you've actually done it, and then you're never quite sure what your limits are.

I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don't want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made.

To keep up appearances, I stomp my room and slam the door.

It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

A little kid asks my dad why that man is chopping down the tree. Dad: He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch - by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.

I have never heard a more eloquent silence.

My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman.

Life is for the living. Don't let the fear of striking out let you from keep you from playing the game.

I pushed my ragged mouth against the mirror. A thousand crushed bleeding lips pushed back at me...

My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into pieces.

My first class is biology. I can't find it and get my first demerit for wandering the hall. It is 8:50 in the morning. Only 699 days and 7 class periods until graduation.

I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with.

Can the plural possessive express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!

It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather's Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or when I traveled abroad. I would always read before sleeping. One day, I'd be so rich I would have a library full of novel to choose from. But I would always end the evening with a Bible passage.

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.

I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.

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

I am getting better at smiling when people expect it.

I make it through the first two weeks of school without a nuclear meltdown.

be aggressive, BE-BE Aggressive! B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E

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.

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

I am a gluttonous, gorging failure. A waste. My body isn’t used to high-sugar carbs laced with witchcraft. It can barely cope with soup and crackers.

CONJUGATE THIS: I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut class. We all cut class. I cannot say this in Spanish because I did not go to Spanish today. Gracias a dios. Hasta luego.

I live in the borderlands. The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism. My visions echo and multiplymultiply. I don't know how to figure out what they mean. I can't tell where they start or if they will end. But I know this. If they shrink my head any more, or float me away on an ocean of pills, I will never return.

She looks like a china doll, observed Grandfather as we departed. I will break just as easily, I muttered.

I showed her how I'd been making tiny cuts in my skin to let the badness and the pain leak out. They were shallow at first, and short, like claw marks made by a desperate cat that wanted to hid under the front porch. Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and my family and my life stolen, made it easier not to care....

Two days later, two days before Christmas, I am judged fat and sane enough to be kicked out of the hospital. The plan to send me straight back to New Seasons won't work. There is no room at the inn for a leather Lia-skin plumped full of messy things. Not yet. The director promises Dr. Marrigan he'll have a bed for me next week. I'm stable enough to go home until then. They all say I'm stable.

Why? You want to know why? Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.

I wish adults would spend less energy freaking out about the cutting itself and work harder to understand what drives kids to self-harm.

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

Lawyers on TV always tell their clients not to say anything. The cops say that thing: 'Anything you say will be used against you.' Self-incrimination. I looked it up. Three-point vocab word. So why does everyone makes such a big hairy deal about me not talking? Maybe I don't want to incriminate myself. Maybe I don't like the sound of my voice. Maybe I don't have anything to say.

Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what’s left sound natural.

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

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.