Laurie halse anderson quotes

I am so sorry. I wish you knew even one tenth of one percent of how sorry I am. ...It was my fault. Can I kill myself here, or should I do it outside, so the mess on your carpet doesn't upset your mother?

You can tell a book is real when your heart beats faster. Real books make you sweat. Cry, if no one is looking. Real books help you make sense of your crazy life. Real books tell it true, don't hold back and make you stronger. But most of all, real books give you hope. Because it's not always going to be like this and books-the good ones, the ones-show you how to make it better. Now.

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

I'm the only one sitting alone, under the glowing neon sign which reads, "Complete and Total Loser, Not Quite Sane. Stay Away. Do Not Feed.

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.

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

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.

You must walk alone to find your soul.

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

The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.

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

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.

I can’t tell anymore when I’m asleep and when I’m awake, or which is worse.

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.

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.

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.

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.

School libraries are the foundations of our culture – not luxuries.

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?

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

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 breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life.

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

I handed my tools. The two of them reached down to help me out of the crater I'd dug. ''Isn't that a little deep?'' Yoda asked. ''It'll help the roots get established,'' I explained. ''Established where? China?

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.

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

i decapitated dandelions all morning, leaving carnage and death strewn into my path.

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

Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to snuggle under the covers.

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 just thought of a great theory that explains everything. When I went to that party, I was abducted by aliens. They have created a fake Earth and fake high school to study me and my reactions. This certainly explains cafeteria food.

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.

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?

It was like looking at a knot, knowing it was a knot, but not knowing how to untie it. I had no map for this life.

I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.

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

Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.

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.

It's a shame we can't just admit that we failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Having a friend made everything else suck less.

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

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

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

You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.

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

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

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 I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.

I am getting better at smiling when people expect it.

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

Hannah was about to burst with excitement, which would have been disgusting because she would have sprayed blood, guts and glitter in every direction.

The one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs you when you want to be left alone.

Mr. Freeman sighs. "No imagination. What are you thirteen? Fourteen? You've already let them beat your creativity out of you!

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

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

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

A scar is a sign of strength. . .the sign of a survivor.

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.

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.

I cry to let everything out

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.

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.

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.

Apologies mean nothing if you don't mean it.

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 am learning how to be angry and sad and lonely and joyful and excited and afraid and happy.

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.

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

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.

I shake my head. I pick up the rake and start making the dead-leaf pile neater. A blister pops and stains the rake handle like a tear. Dad nods and walks to the Jeep, keys jangling in his fingers. A mockingbird lands on a low oak branch and scolds me. I rake the leaves out of my throat. Me: "Can you buy some seeds? Flower seeds?

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

Write about the emotions you fear the most.

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

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.

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.

Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.

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 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.

The bathroom door swings open. Emma sees the blood painting my skin and the red rivers carved on my body. Emma sees the wet knife, silver and bone. The screams of my little sister shatter mirrors.

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.

Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another book called "Symbolism in My Books?" If he didn't, then you could just be making all of this up. Does anyone really think this guy sat down and stuck all kinds of hidden meanings into his story? It's just a story.... But I think you are making all of this symbolism stuff up. I don't believe any of it.

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.

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.

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.

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

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.

You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beat- ing heart. Soon you’ll cross the border and be with me. I’m so stoked. I miss you wicked.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

She turns to us, acts surprised to see us, then does the bit with the back of the hand to the forehead. "You're lost!" "You're angry!" "You're in the wrong school!" "You're in the wrong country!" "You're on the wrong planet!

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?

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!

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

I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way.... I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself.

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.

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.

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.

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

Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.

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

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.

Nicole can do anything that involves a ball and whistle.

Gym should be illegal. It's humiliating.

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

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

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.

I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don’t want to die.

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.