Quotes from Laurie Halse Anderson

For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better.

Her eyes were tired, but we're seniors. All seniors have dead eyes.

To us today, it seems completely hypocritical to fight a war for "liberty and freedom" when 20 percent of your population is in chains. People back then saw the hypocrisy too. It made some of them uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to change the law, not right away. Vermont abolished slavery on July 8, 1777, when it adopted its state constitution. After the Revolution, the other states in the North gradually required slave owners to free their slaves.

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

The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't.

The doctors tied me back together with twine... They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots

when I wasn't stoned the only thing that helped me breathe was a book

Can you kill a ghost by driving a knitting needle through her heart?

Life was a battle, and Mother a tired and bitter captain. The captain I had to obey.

I try not to dwell on this.

I don't know anything. My trees suck.

Nothing. It all sounds stupid.

Don't forget how to be gentle, she warned. Don't let the hardness of the world steal the softness of your heart. The greatest strength of all is daring to love.

I need to study David Petrakis. His actions speak louder than word. I've never heard a more eloquent silence.

Now you are burnt-out husks, your spirits haggard, sere, always breeding over your wanderings long and hard, your hearts never lifting with any joy - you've suffered far too much.

The rooftop beyond that was a lake of fire.

My momma and poppa appeared from the shadows. They flew to me and wrapped their arms around me and cooled my face with their ghost tears.

scars may look stronger than unwounded skin, but they're not once broken, we're hurt again, or worse

Hurry up," Gracie called after him. "I want to talk to dead people.

It had become easier to lie about most things because it didn't hurt as much when he ignored me.

You're not dead, but you're not alive either. You're a wintergirl, Lia-Lia

There is one good thing about not eating," I said. "What would that be?" Greenlaw asked. "We've got nothing to fart with.

The only number that would ever be enough is 0.

I'm a doll that they've outgrown.