“I make it through the first two weeks of school without a nuclear meltdown.”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“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.”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values….”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“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 WintergirlsSource: Wintergirls
“I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.”Laurie Halse Anderson Source: Twisted
“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
“The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“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 WintergirlsSource: Wintergirls
“I see IT in the hallway. IT goes to Merryweather. IT is walking with Aubrey cheerleader. IT is my nightmare and I can't wake up. IT sees me. IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up.”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“I'd treat myself to a reading marathon all weekend. All the ice cream I could eat, all the pages I could read..”Laurie Halse Anderson Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory
“Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It's not like you can blame a mattress when people don't tie it down tight enough.”Laurie Halse Anderson WintergirlsSource: Wintergirls
“It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“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 SpeakSource: Speak
“I watch the Eruptions. Mount Dad, long dormant, now considered armed and dangerous. Mount Saint Mom, oozing lava, spitting flame. Warn the villagers to run into the sea.”Laurie Halse Anderson SpeakSource: Speak
“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.”Laurie Halse Anderson WintergirlsSource: Wintergirls
“I am learning how to be angry and sad and lonely and joyful and excited and afraid and happy.”Laurie Halse Anderson WintergirlsSource: Wintergirls