Top 242 Quotes & Sayings by Laurie Halse Anderson - Page 4

Some adults would rather pretend that bad things dont exist than to talk about them.

You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.

We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better. Then it melts. The bus drivers rev their engines and the ice cloud shatters. Everyone shuffles forward. They don't know what just happened. They can't remember.

Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.

I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie.

He doesn't see my breasts or my waist or my hips. He only sees the nightmare.

I need to finish this scarf/shawl/blanket thing so I can start something for Emma- a hat, maybe, or a sweater for her stuffed elephant.

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.

There's no point in asking why, even though everybody will. I know why. The harder question is "why not?" I can't believe she ran out of answers before I did.

I knew how much it hurt to be the daughter of people who can't see you, not even if you are standing in front of them stomping your feet.

The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.

Grandma frowned and yelled something in Russian. She could have been saying, 'Open up, your best friend is here.' On the other hand, it could have been, 'America is a great country because of canned ravioli.

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.

They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.

I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with.

I understood what triggered her earthquakes, most of them.

Did you read last nights assignments?" Say "yes'" and get hammered again. Say "no'" and the same thing would happen.

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

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

I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn't perfect and that makes it just right.

They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they're dry.

Because I am still a little girl who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and you.

What do I want? The answer to that question does not exist.

We swore sacred oaths to be strong and to save the planet and to be friends forever.

I like cheeseburgers too much to be a model.

They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs.

I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find her way to the exit. All eyes on me.

I can see us, living in the woods, her wearing that A, me with a S maybe, S for silent, S for stupid, for scared. S for silly. For shame.

Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don't express themselves, they die on piece at a time.

I watch the Eruptions. Mount Dad, long dormant, now considered armed and dangerous. Mount Saint Mom, oozing lava, spitting flame. Warn the villagers to run into the sea.

Having to parent your mother or father is a challenge that way too many teens have to deal with. Teens whose parents are dealing with substance abuse, financial hardship, job loss, mental illness and divorce deserve our love, support, and compassion. I wish America would stop judging and criticizing teens and instead, try to understand the battles they have to fight every day.

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.

I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.

Bologna girl, that's me.

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.

I inscribe three lines, hush hush hush, into my skin. Ghosts trickle out.

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.

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.

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.

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.

i was raped, too sexually assaulted in seventh grade, tenth grade. the summer after graduation, at a party i was 16 i was 14 i was 5 and he did it for three years i loved him i didn't even know him he was my best friend's brother, my grandfather, father, mommy's boyfriend, my date, my cousin, my coach i met him for the first time that night and- 4 guys took turns, and- i'm a boy and this happened to me, and- ...i got pregnant i gave up my daughter for adoption... did it happen to you, too?

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.

If I ever form a clan, we'll be the anti-cheerleaders and walk under the bleacher forming mild acts of mayhem.

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazy activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become an adult. I hope it's worth it.

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.

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We're reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones. It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break -- these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scarlet letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward?

I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.

A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.

I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.

I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.

I doubt trees are ever told to 'be the screwed-up ninth-grader.'

Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn't sick; I was strong.

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.

Do I want to die from the inside out or the outside in?

Rumors are spread by jealous people

It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather's Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or when I traveled abroad. I would always read before sleeping. One day, I'd be so rich I would have a library full of novel to choose from. But I would always end the evening with a Bible passage.

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.

It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

Look at the stupid, poor people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people, look at their dead baby. It's death porn for the masses.

Used to be that my whole body was my canvas-hot cuts licking my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs.