Quote

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

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
Kids
Adults
Self
Harder
Work
Spend
Would
Cutting
Less
Wish
Freaking
Understand
Drives
Energy
Harm

More quotes by Laurie Halse Anderson

Image
Why? You want to know why? Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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?
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend - trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch - perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
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 pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way.... I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Rumors are spread by jealous people
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
Apologies mean nothing if you don't mean it.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
We swore sacred oaths to be strong and to save the planet and to be friends forever.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values.
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
She offered herself to the big, bad wolf and didn't scream when he took the first bite.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
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.
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
Image
You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you've never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help you find the wind.
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
Some adults would rather pretend that bad things dont exist than to talk about them.
Laurie Halse Anderson
Image
The stars whirled above us and the firecrackers blazed. The moon stood watch as drops of blood fell, careless seeds that sizzled in the snow.
Laurie Halse Anderson