Quotes from Laurie Halse Anderson

I am strong enough to pick up a stick of butter. I am strong enough to peel off the paper wrapper, drop a hunk in the pan, and watchlistensmell it melt.

I avoid the drama of the girls still neck-deep in the snow, running away from the pain as fast as they can. I hope they figure it out.

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 US 853, 872 (1982), when the Supremes memorably sang: Supreme Court precedent condemns school officials who remove books "simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.

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.

I HAD THOUGHT ONLY SLAVERY DREADFUL, BUT THE STATE OF A FREE NEGRO APPEARED TO ME NOW EQUALLY SO AT LEAST, AND IN SOME RESPECTS EVEN WORSE, FOR THEY LIVE IN CONSTANT ALARM FOR THEIR LIBERTY. —OLAUDAH EQUIANO, MARINER AND FORMER SLAVE

I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.

little homey details to remind Wife Number One who wears the diamond ring around here.

He's finally admitting how desperate things are, but he doesn't think treatment will work.' 'Why not?' 'You don't want to get better. He says nothing will work until you want to be healthy and have a real life.

want to go out with me? ??? chill, im not gay ???? r u shur you're not my type G wats yr typ? people who can spell

Now I knew. I would fight the eagle and the chains and that mountain as long as I had breath.

I'm one of those people who never knows what to say, so I say nothing. Then people think I am a snob. Or if I do say something, half the time I blurt out the wrong thing and embarrass myself.

A plan began forming in my mind, but I quickly shushed the thought. I didn't have time to dream or plan. I would deal with each hour as it came, one step at a time.

The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism

I said "shit" in front of the church ladies

The bees of my melancholy, which had rarely troubled me since we escaped that foul man Bellingham at Valley Forge, were buzzing inside my brainpan, fast overcoming my customary caution.

the necessary, impossible goodbye that had suddenly, in slow motion, arrived

knew enough to use their blindness to our advantage.

There are three "real" people in the book. The mayor of New York, David Matthews, actually did participate in the conspiracy to assassinate Washington. Thomas Hickey was a member of Washington's Life Guards, and was hung for his part in the assassination plot. And Dr. Abraham van Buskirk, the Loyalist sympathizer who sheltered Mr. Lockwood, truly was a doctor in New Jersey.

I shook from the effort of holding myself still, clutching the crumpled paper. Momma said we had to fight the evil inside us by overcoming it with goodness. She said it was a hard thing to do, but it made us worthy. I breathed deep to steady myself.

The fight simmers gently on the back of the stove all afternoon, the bubbles rising up and popping, ingredients falling to the bottom, then surfacing again. It doesn't boil over until the sun sets.

The tension between Patriot and Loyalist New Yorkers, the Tea Water Pump, the taking of lead from houses, the pulling down of King George's statue, the chaos surrounding the British invasion of the city, the fire, prisoners of war, the Queen's Birthday Ball: all of these are historical facts. I wove the fictional characters of Isabel and Curzon into the history to give readers a sense of what life might have been like in those days.

pretended they flirted back

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.

One night the cook served us beans and more beans for dinner. Instead of sleeping, we farted all night long, which caused