Quote

Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.

Laurie Halse Anderson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Laurie Halse Anderson
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: October 23
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Laurie Beth Halse
Corners
Stoves
Angry
Eyelids
Air
Grease
Blood
Ripped
Words
Knife
Girl
Knives
Clutching
Someone
Trained
Piled
Stands
Stove

More quotes by Laurie Halse Anderson

Image
We're good at taking care of little kids, and spend a lot of energy teaching them things like how to read. But when kids get as tall as their parents and can look them in the eyes, we tend to drop the ball - at a time they most need a loving consistent community of adults, be it parents, aunts, uncles, or others.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I wish adults would spend less energy freaking out about the cutting itself and work harder to understand what drives kids to self-harm.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
If I run or breathe too deep, the cheap stitches holding me together will snap, and all the stickiness inside will pour out and burn through the concrete.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I am so sorry. I wish you knew even one tenth of one percent of how sorry I am. ...It was my fault. Can I kill myself here, or should I do it outside, so the mess on your carpet doesn't upset your mother?
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
They mean hot like 'I'm too good for you I got my own money don't be frontin' me.' You're more like 'Be my boyfriend I'll make you cookies come meet my dad ' know what I mean
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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?
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I handed my tools. The two of them reached down to help me out of the crater I'd dug. ''Isn't that a little deep?'' Yoda asked. ''It'll help the roots get established,'' I explained. ''Established where? China?
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I am learning how to be angry and sad and lonely and joyful and excited and afraid and happy.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
If I ever form a clan, we'll be the anti-cheerleaders and walk under the bleacher forming mild acts of mayhem.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
You must walk alone to find your soul.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Write about the emotions you fear the most.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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
Image
I knew it! He pumps a fist into the air. You've fallen in love with me. You want to have my babies. We'll get a team of horses and a covered wagon and we'll journey to South America and raise goats.
Laurie Halse Anderson