Laurie Halse Anderson citations

Page 3

“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.”

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

“Rumors are spread by jealous people”

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

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

“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”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I'd treat myself to a reading marathon all weekend. All the ice cream I could eat, all the pages I could read..”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“I cry to let everything out”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to.”

“None of [the books are] worth reading. There are no fairy tales, no faerie tails, no sword-swinging princesses or lightning-throwing gods.”

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

“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.”

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

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