Laurie Halse Anderson famous quotes

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Self Esteem #Inspiration #Pounds

Write about the emotions you fear the most.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Writing #Emotion

You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Self Esteem #Mirrors #Laughing

I don't just use yarn from a store. I buy old sweaters from consignment shops. The older the better, and unravel them. There are countries of women in this scarf/shawl/blanket. Soon it will be big enough to keep me warm.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Country #Yarn #Sweaters

I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy...
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Reading #Recovery #Kissing

Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Art #Creativity #Cake

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

#Believe #Ghost #Aspect

A scar is a sign of strength. . .the sign of a survivor.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Survivor #Scar

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!
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Art #Moving #Oil

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Lying #Communication #Feelings

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

#Book #Pages #Wanted

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#True Friend #Stupid #Clothes

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Children #Father #Ignorance

I failed eating, failed drinking, failed not cutting myself into shreds. Failed friendship. Failed sisterhood and daughterhood. Failed mirrors and scales and phone calls. Good thing I'm stable.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Drinking #Cutting #Sisterhood

When life sucks, read. They can't yell at you for that. And if they do, then you can ignore them.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Life Sucks

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Teacher #Book #Taken

You were born with the seeds of your talent, the ability to observe the world around you and weave piece of it into a story. I believe that most -- if not all -- people are born with these seeds. What separates the writers from the non-writers is that the writers actually sit down and, you know... write.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Believe #Writing #People

If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Girl #Baby #Stars

School libraries are the foundations of our culture – not luxuries.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#School #Luxury #Library

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Mistake #Apology #Stitches

When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Inspirational #Death #People

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

#Anarchy #Cheerleader #Clans

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

#Sacrifice #Bird #Wonderful

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Average #Perfect #Interesting

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Truth #Memories #Confused

Sometimes being an adult means doing the right thing, even if it's not what you want.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Mean #Adults #Want

I don’t know what I’m doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. I’ll worry about making it out of ninth grade alive. Then I’ll think about a career path.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Thinking #Years #Careers

I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn't perfect and that makes it just right.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Eye #Rivers #Perfect

i was raped, too sexually assaulted in seventh grade, tenth grade. the summer after graduation, at a party i was 16 i was 14 i was 5 and he did it for three years i loved him i didn't even know him he was my best friend's brother, my grandfather, father, mommy's boyfriend, my date, my cousin, my coach i met him for the first time that night and- 4 guys took turns, and- i'm a boy and this happened to me, and- ...i got pregnant i gave up my daughter for adoption... did it happen to you, too?
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Summer #Daughter #Cousin

Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Perfect #Interesting #Tree

I have ten bucks in my pocket - what to spend it on? French fries - ten dollars' worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Pockets #Dollars #Bucks

Rumors are spread by jealous people
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Jealous #People #Rumor

I cry to let everything out
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Cry

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Hurt #Inspiration #Soul

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?
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Army #Hammers #Trials

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Shy #Want #Limits

Didn't help to ponder things that were forever gone. It only made a body restless and fill up with bees, all wanting to sting something.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Life #Forever #Bees

Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Wish #Be Careful #Careful

The light beyond my eyes flashflashflashes with a hundred futures for me. Doctor. Ship's captain. Forest ranger. Librarian. Beloved of that man or that women or those children or those people who voted for me or who painted my picture. Poet. Acrobat. Engineer. Friend. Guardian. Avenging whirlwind. A million futures--not all pretty, not all long, but all of them mine. I do have a choice" - p. 271
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Children #Eye #Men

What do you miss about being alive?" The sound of my mom singing, a little off-key. The way my dad went to all my swim meets and I could hear his whistle when my head was underwater, even if he did yell at me afterward for not trying harder. I miss going to the library. I miss the smell of clothes fresh out of the dryer. I miss diving off the highest board and nailing the landing. I miss waffles" - p. 272.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Mom #Dad #Smell

The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Sun #Ghost #Come Up

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
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Children #Father #Book

The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Zero #Numbers #Tennis

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

#Coffee #Muffins #Crumbs

This is not our fight', the old man said. 'British or American, that is not the choice. You must choose your own side, find your road through the valley of darkness that will lead you to the river Jordan. . . Look hard for your river Jordan, my child. You'll find it.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Children #Fighting #Men

In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sports cars on their sixteenth birthdays. Teacher smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the Pride of the Trojans. Oops – I mean Pride of the Blue Devils. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship the stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancún during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before prom.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Sports #Fashion #Beach

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

#Hurt #Mean #Helping

I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Hurt #Lying #Confusion

It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Hurt #Sparrows #Rooms

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... -Wintergirls
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Hurt #Pain #Cutting

I am learning how to be angry and sad and lonely and joyful and excited and afraid and happy.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Lonely #Excited #Joyful

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

#Firsts #Scream #Bigs

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Memories #Ocean #Mean

Momma said that ghosts couldn't move over water. That's why Africans got trapped in the Americas.. They kept moving us over the water, stealing us away from our ghosts and ancestors, who cried salty rivers into the sand. That's where Momma was now, wailing at the water's edge, while her girls were pulled out of sight under white sails that cracked in the wind.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Girl #Moving #Wind

The stars whirled above us and the firecrackers blazed. The moon stood watch as drops of blood fell, careless seeds that sizzled in the snow.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Stars #Moon #Blood

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

#Thinking #Doe #Nobody Knows

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Girl #Stars #Moon

Too much sun after a Syracuse winter does strange things to your head, makes you feel strong, even if you aren't.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Strong #Spring #Winter

He says a million things without saying a word. I have never heard a more eloquent silence.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Silence #Heard #Eloquent

I like cheeseburgers too much to be a model.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Too Much #Cheeseburger #Models

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

#Differences #Listening #Communicate

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

#Tree #Doubt #Screwed Up

Having a friend made everything else suck less.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Made

Can't escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Pain #Battle #Stronger

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

#Our Veterans #Proud #Veteran

I am locked into the mirror and there is no door out.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Mirrors #Doors

Adrenaline kicks you in when you’re starving. That’s what nobody understands. Except for being hungry and cold, most of the time I feel like I can do anything. It gives me superhuman powers of smell and hearing. I can see what people are thinking, stay two steps ahead of them. I do enough homework to stay off the radar. Every night I climb thousands of steps into the sky to make me so exhausted that when I fall into bed, I don’t notice Cassie. Then suddenly it’s morning and I leap on the hamster wheel and it starts all over again.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Morning #Fall #Night

I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Suicide #Hurt #Blood

i decapitated dandelions all morning, leaving carnage and death strewn into my path.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Morning #Leaving #Path

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
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Dad #Mean #My Boyfriend

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Art #Men #Guy

I am not going to think about it. It was ugly, but it’s over, and I’m not going to think about it.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Thinking #Ugly

I understood what triggered her earthquakes, most of them.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Earthquakes #Understood

There's no point in asking why, even though everybody will. I know why. The harder question is "why not?" I can't believe she ran out of answers before I did.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Believe #Why Not #Asking

If I run or breathe too deep, the cheap stitches holding me together will snap, and all the stickiness inside will pour out and burn through the concrete.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Running #Together #Stitches

They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they're dry.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Together #Skins #Faults

I watch some kids ask the cafeteria ladies to sign their books. What do they write: "Hope your chicken patties never bleed?" Or, maybe, "May your Jell-O always wiggle?
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Book #Kids #Writing

There is no safer. There’s not even safe, never has been.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Safe

Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Cutting #Animal #Play

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.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Girl #Couple #Real

I smile and play pretend through the Morning Show in the kitchen.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Morning #Play #Kitchen

I keep thinking that if I could just unzip my skin, step out of this body, then I would see who I really am.“ She nods her head slowly. „What do you think you‘d look like?” “Smaller, for a start.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Thinking #Skins #Looks

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

#Fighting #America #Judging

I believe that you've created a metaphorical universe in which you can express your darkest fears. In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves, and sometimes we do such a good job, we lose track of reality.
-- Laurie Halse Anderson

#Jobs #Believe #Reality