Quote

I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone to sit next to. A predator approaches: gray jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head. Probably a social studies teacher, hired to coach a blood sport.

Laurie Halse Anderson

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Laurie Halse Anderson
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: October 23
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Laurie Beth Halse
Looking
Teacher
Necks
Aisle
Auditoriums
Anyone
Blood
Gray
Buzz
Zebras
Social
Stand
Coaches
Hired
Jock
Next
Probably
Sport
Approaches
Thicker
Someone
Study
Center
Neck
Geographic
Around
Special
National
Studies
Jocks
Head
Approach
Wounded
Whistle
Auditorium
Sports
Cutting
Coach
Predator
Zebra

More quotes by Laurie Halse Anderson

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I wish adults would spend less energy freaking out about the cutting itself and work harder to understand what drives kids to self-harm.
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I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.
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I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?
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Sometimes being an adult means doing the right thing, even if it's not what you want.
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The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don't offer up anything. Don't explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don't accidentally put your head in a noose.
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My first class is biology. I can't find it and get my first demerit for wandering the hall. It is 8:50 in the morning. Only 699 days and 7 class periods until graduation.
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I don’t know what I’m doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. I’ll worry about making it out of ninth grade alive. Then I’ll think about a career path.
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I keep thinking that if I could just unzip my skin, step out of this body, then I would see who I really am.“ She nods her head slowly. „What do you think you‘d look like?” “Smaller, for a start.
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When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside—walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know.
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We've fallen down on our responsibility to our children by somehow creating this world where they're surrounded by images of sexuality and yet, we as adults struggle to talk to kids honestly about sex, the rules of dignity and consent.
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Why are you being so mean? Friends tell friends the truth. yeah, but not to hurt, to help.
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My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman.
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Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.
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Too much sun after a Syracuse winter does strange things to your head, makes you feel strong, even if you aren't.
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And then a new screen, one I had never seen before, never even heard of popped up. It gave me a choice. I could become the new Lord of Darkness myself, or I could take a gamble and be reincarnated. I chose wisely.
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If I ever form a clan, we'll be the anti-cheerleaders and walk under the bleacher forming mild acts of mayhem.
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Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.
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I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. 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.
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I scared myself, because once you've thought long and hard enough about doing something that is colossally stupid, you feel like you've actually done it, and then you're never quite sure what your limits are.
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We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. We danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned us into wintergirls, when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.
Laurie Halse Anderson