Quote

Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

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
Flaws
Tree
Interesting
Perfect
Speak
Nothing

More quotes by Laurie Halse Anderson

Image
I swallowed the fear. It’s always there– fear– and if you don’t stay on top of it, you’ll drown. I swallowed again and stood tall, shoulders broad, arms loose. I was balanced, ready to move. My body said, “Yeah, you’re bigger and stronger, but if you touch this, I will hurt you.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
A little kid asks my dad why that man is chopping down the tree. Dad: He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch - by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.
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
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Hannah was about to burst with excitement, which would have been disgusting because she would have sprayed blood, guts and glitter in every direction.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.
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
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
Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and my family and my life stolen, made it easier not to care... -Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Nicole can do anything that involves a ball and whistle.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Mr. Freeman sighs. No imagination. What are you thirteen? Fourteen? You've already let them beat your creativity out of you!
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I want to tell him that it's just a stupid car, but bits of me are scattered all over town the graveyard, school, Cassie's room, the motel, and standing in from of the sink in my mother's kitchen. It takes too much energy to gather all the bits together, so I just sit there and watch him implode.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Death is funny, when you think about it. Everybody does it, but nobody knows how, exactly how.
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 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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
You must walk alone to find your soul.
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
Memory cuts both ways it can either provide you with tremendous strength and a foundation to carry you through your life, or it can be a demon that just ruins your present and your future because you can’t let go of the past.
Laurie Halse Anderson