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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.

Laurie Halse Anderson

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Laurie Halse Anderson
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: October 23
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Laurie Beth Halse
Kids
Dignity
Children
Adults
Consent
World
Rules
Surrounded
Sex
Sexuality
Creating
Images
Struggle
Fallen
Responsibility
Somehow
Talk
Honestly

More quotes by Laurie Halse Anderson

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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
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This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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I am not going to think about it. It was ugly, but it’s over, and I’m not going to think about it.
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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page
Laurie Halse Anderson
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I would never be popular. I didn't want to be I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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Dead girl walking” the boys say in the halls. “Tell us your secrets” the girls whisper, one toilet to another. I am that girl. I am the spaces between my thighs, daylight shinning through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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Picasso.” He whispers like a priest. “Picasso. Who saw the truth. Who painted the truth, molded it, ripped from the earth with two angry hands.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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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.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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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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Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers more important than images? Who decides this? Does algebra move you to tears? Can plural possessives express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!
Laurie Halse Anderson
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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
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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
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I am learning how to be angry and sad and lonely and joyful and excited and afraid and happy.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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I sit at a table close to his desk. Ivy is in this class. She sits by the door. I keep staring at her, trying to make her look at me. That happens in movies - people can feel it when oother people stare at them and they just have to turn around and say something. Either Ivy has a great force field, or my lazer vision isn't very strong.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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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
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CONJUGATE THIS: I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut class. We all cut class. I cannot say this in Spanish because I did not go to Spanish today. Gracias a dios. Hasta luego.
Laurie Halse Anderson
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Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
Laurie Halse Anderson