Quotes from Laurie Halse Anderson

I'm the girl who trips on the dance floor and can't find her way to the exit. All eyes on me.

My earbuds were in, but I wasn't playing music. I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.

I'm the only one sitting alone, under the glowing neon sign which reads, Complete and Total Loser, Not Quite Sane. Stay Away. Do Not Feed.

She turns to us, acts surprised to see us, then does the bit with the back of the hand to the forehead. You're lost! You're angry! You're in the wrong school! You're in the wrong country! You're on the wrong planet!

I see a girl caught in the remains of a holiday gone bad, with her flesh picked off day after day as the carcass dries out. The knife and fork are abviously middle-class sensibilities. The palm tree is a nice touch. A broken dream,perhaps? Plastic honeymoon, deserted island? Oh, If you put in a slice of pumpkin pie, it could be a desserted island! (Pg 64)

Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what's left sound natural.

I have ten bucks in my pocket - what to spend it on? French fries - ten dollars' worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.

Look at the stupid, poor people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people, look at their dead baby. It's death porn for the masses.

It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather's Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or when I traveled abroad. I would always read before sleeping. One day, I'd be so rich I would have a library full of novel to choose from. But I would always end the evening with a Bible passage.

The books I'd checked out of the library earlier in the week were still stacked on my bureau, whispering my name and begging to be read.

The bruises are vivid, but they will fade.

The constitution does not recognize different classes of citizenship based on time spent living in the country. I am a citizen, with the same rights as your son, or you. As a citizen, and as a student, I am protesting the tone of this lesson as racist, intolerant, and xenophobic.

I'm angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating icecream or kissing a boy or maybe a girl...

I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy or maybe a girl with gentle lips and strong hands.

I like cheeseburgers too much to be a model.

i decapitated dandelions all morning, leaving carnage and death strewn into my path.

I watch some kids ask the cafeteria ladies to sign their books. What do they write: Hope your chicken patties never bleed? Or, maybe, May your Jell-O always wiggle?

I shake my head. I pick up the rake and start making the dead-leaf pile neater. A blister pops and stains the rake handle like a tear. Dad nods and walks to the Jeep, keys jangling in his fingers. A mockingbird lands on a low oak branch and scolds me. I rake the leaves out of my throat. Me: Can you buy some seeds? Flower seeds?

It's a shame we can't just admit that we failed family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives.

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become and adult. I hope it's worth it.

Momma said that ghosts couldn't move over water. That's why Africans got trapped in the Americas.. They kept moving us over the water, stealing us away from our ghosts and ancestors, who cried salty rivers into the sand. That's where Momma was now, wailing at the water's edge, while her girls were pulled out of sight under white sails that cracked in the wind.

I think you have a lot to say. I'd like to hear it.

Pie makes everybody happy.