Quotes from Laurie Halse Anderson

Out there on the edge, the spinning of the Earth had slowed to give us the time we need to start finding each other again.

I can't stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone else, someone I don't even know.

She snapped, they said. Couldn't take it anymore. Reached her breaking point. We should teach our girls that snapping is okay instead of waiting for someone else to break them.

It isn't August. The moon is asleep and I'm sitting on my porch roof like a frozen gargoyle, wondering if the sun is going to blow off the world today and sleepin.

Welcome to the only class that will teach you how to survive. Welcome to art. This is where you find your true self, if you dare(16)".

the mouth they want to eat with, smile with, sing with, paint with glitter, lip- stick, and stain with grape popsicles or wine from a dark sea, a mouth to whisper with love, to open wide and swallow what love offers, hungry always for more.

My bed is sending out serious nap rays.

He is hunched over a spinning pot, his hands muddy red. "Welcome to the only class that will teach you how to survive," he says. "Welcome to Art.

Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag. When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.

Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage - 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 one piece at a time.

Trying to figure out what you want to do, who you want to be, is messy as hell; at best anyone can hope for is to figure out the next step.

Persephone tucks a lock of Ophelia's hair behind the shell of her ear and Ophelia takes Persephone's hand and gently kisses the palm.

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.

I dare you to punch me, I said. You? Dare me? He was laughing too hard to say anything else. I shove him. I double-dare you. If you don't have the guts to do it, you're a weenie. I shove again, harder. If you do, you're an even bigger weenie because it's harder to take a punch than to give one.

Mom closes her eyes. Her skin is a flat gray color, like underwear that has been washed so many times it's about to fall apart. I feel bad that I didn't fold more shirts for her.

It's amazing any thing survives.

Picasso sure had a thing for naked women. Why not draw them with their clothes on? Who sits around without a shirt on, plucking a mandolin? Why not draw naked guys, just to be fair? Naked women is art, naked men a no-no, I bet. Probably because most painters are men.

I used to dream about bringing a knife to therapy and slicing her into pork chop-sized pieces.

Everybody carried a little evil in them, Momma once told me. Madam Lockton had more than her share. The poison had eaten holes through her soul and made room for vermin to nest inside her.

I can't believe we have to keep playacting until I graduate. It's a shame we can't just admit that we have failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives.

Let me ask you something. We're fighting for freedom, right?" I picked my words carefully. "So why is that man allowed to own Baumfree and Bett?" "Well," he said slowly, "we're fighting for our freedom. Not theirs.

Just in case we forget that "weareheretogetagoodfoundation sowecangotocollegeliveuptoourpotentialgetagoodjoblivehap pilyeverafterandgotoDisneyWorld," we have a Job Day.

It was a prom dress.It was pink.It was originally seventy percent off,but Ma got it down to eighty-five percent off by screaming My water broke! while we were checking out

I am an iceberg drifting towards the edge of the map