Laurie Halse Anderson quote: "I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?"

It's easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I want to make a memorial for our turkey. Never has a bird been so tortured to provide such a lousy ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Why are you being so mean?"
"Friends tell friends the truth."
"yeah, but not to hurt, to h...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I can't do everything for you. You must walk alone to find your soul.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I need a new friend. I need a friend, period. Not a true friend, nothing close or share clothes or s...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Killing people is easier than it should be.” Dad put on his beret. “Staying alive is harder.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

CONJUGATE THIS:
I cut class, you cut class, he, she, it cuts class. We cut class, they cut clas...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like t...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say not...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easi...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

We have to acknowledge that adolescence is that time of transition where we begin to introduce to ch...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's w...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I want to tell him that it's just a stupid car, but bits of me are scattered all over town; the grav...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

No, I am never setting foot in this house again it scares me and makes me sad and I wish you could b...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I've written in every imaginable location; a repurposed closet, the kitchen table, the bleachers...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

It's easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL

1. We are here to help you.
2. You...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

We're good at taking care of little kids, and spend a lot of energy teaching them things like ho...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hidi...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I wish America would stop judging and criticizing teens and instead, try to understand the battles t...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these tho...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it. He...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Sometimes when I find myself very irritated about a topic, I know it's my next book.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I failed eating, failed drinking, failed not cutting myself into shreds. Failed friendship. Failed s...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I'm learning how to taste everything.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

You're not dead but you're not alive. You're a wintergirl.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I don't just use yarn from a store. I buy old sweaters from consignment shops. The older the better,...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I'm finally watching 'Mad Men.' As a child of the '60s, I can't believe how old ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Nicole can do anything that involves a ball and whistle.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

It's bad timing, but a lot of kids become teenagers just as their parents are hitting their mid-...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washi...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I am so sorry. I wish you knew even one tenth of one percent of how sorry I am. ...It was my fault. ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Mi sgridano perché non riesco a vedere quello che vedono loro.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

They mean hot like 'I'm too good for you I got my own money don't be frontin' me.' You're more like ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't h...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I handed my tools. The two of them reached down to help me out of the crater I'd dug. ''Isn't that a...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March.

.........

I am spinn...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Write about the emotions you fear the most.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. Don't get me wrong, I like reading. But some bo...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Gym should be illegal. It's humiliating.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Once upon a time there was an eighteen-year-old girl who dragged her butt out of bed and hauled it a...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied dow...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

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

Cutting pain was a different flavor of hurt. It made it easier not to think about having my body and...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers mo...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another b...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

You know how sometimes you hear a chord played on an organ and you can feel it vibrating in your bon...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I think how veterans are treated in our country is an abomination. We don't have the draft any m...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don't want to die. I want to eat like a normal person e...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so...I would bleed, or not. Sca...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewa...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People se...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

I breathe in slowly. Food is life. I exhale, take another breath. Food is life. And that's the probl...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

Everyone is born a freak," notes Hayley. "Every newborn baby, wet and hungry and screaming, is a fre...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Why? You want to know why?

Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three da...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

A scar is a sign of strength. . .the sign of a survivor.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I need to finish this scarf/shawl/blanket thing so I can start something for Emma- a hat, maybe, or ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

We were secret sisters with a plan for world domination, potential bubbling around us like champagne...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I have survived. I am here.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flyin...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Mr. Freeman sighs. "No imagination. What are you thirteen? Fourteen? You've already let them beat yo...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adu...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazy activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, th...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I know my head isn't screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you've n...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I have never heard a more eloquent silence.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I am getting better at smiling when people expect it.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy p...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I can’t tell anymore when I’m asleep and when I’m awake, or which is worse.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I wish I had cancer. I will burn in hell for that, but it's true.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fing...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue libr...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry word...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Li...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I believe that you've created a metaphorical universe in which you can express your darkest fears. I...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I knew how much it hurt to be the daughter of people who can't see you, not even if you are standing...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

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

Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

We are crayons and lunchboxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I looked in the mirror and realized that I was already dead. I let you kill me one piece at a time, ...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Death is funny, when you think about it. Everybody does it, but nobody knows how, exactly how.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

How could men who liked cats be bad?
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I thought of all the ancestors waiting at the water's edge for their stolen children to come home. W...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl?
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into pieces.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfa...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

(From the Q&A with the author at the end of the book.)
Have any readers ever asked question...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Pie makes everybody happy.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Slush is frozen over. People say that winter lasts forever, but it's because they obsess over the th...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The feedback I get is that my books are honest. I don't sugar-coat anything. Life is really hard...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Yes it is, because you can only be brave if you're scared.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Ans...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

Can't escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The world is crazy. You need a license to drive a car and go fishing. You don't need a license to st...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make i...
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON

The only stuff I don't like are Broadway musicals. I hate them. I don't even like to talk ab...
LAURIE ANDERSON

When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And whe...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
LAURIE ANDERSON

I've never really had a hobby, unless you count art, which the IRS once told me I had to declare...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Writers want to summarize: What does this mean? What did we learn from this? That's a very 19th-...
LAURIE ANDERSON

I'm an average enough person to point to the things I've gotten to see that are awe-inspirin...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Well I was out in my four door
With the top down.
And I looked up and there they were:
M...
LAURIE ANDERSON

They say that Heaven is like TV... a perfect little world, that doesn't really need you.
LAURIE ANDERSON

When love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
A...
LAURIE ANDERSON

And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see.
Cause everybody on the island
Was s...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
LAURIE ANDERSON

And Sharkey says: Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave. He says: Listen to my hea...
LAURIE ANDERSON

You know, I can see two tiny pictures of myself And there's one in each of your eyes. And they're do...
LAURIE ANDERSON

The fewer expectations you have, the better.
LAURIE ANDERSON

Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so hug...
LAURIE ANDERSON

When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. A...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Songs and Stories from Moby Dick,
LAURIE ANDERSON

When you think of the Caribbean today, you think of clear blue warm water, ... Probably about 12 mil...
LAURIE ANDERSON

The promoter called and said, 'What should we do?' People were calling to say they were sure it was ...
LAURIE ANDERSON

My son already knows how to program my phone. I think technology is good. ... They are learning the ...
LAURIE ANDERSON

The world is a strange and wonderful place.
LAURIE ANDERSON

When I was a teenager, I dreamed abbout escaping. I was lucky. I succeeded.
LAURIE ANDERSON

I see that it has huge benefits for us understanding how and why diversity changes over time and how...
LAURIE ANDERSON

When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when ...
LAURIE ANDERSON

One of the things I learned from working on the Olympics was, the world does not need another big mu...
LAURIE ANDERSON

When you meet a man who is broken, pick him up and carry him. When you meet a woman who’s broken, ...
LAURIE ANDERSON

And there was a beautiful view,
But nobody could see.
'Cause everyone in the Island was sa...
LAURIE ANDERSON

My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've sa...
LAURIE ANDERSON

I have written a lot about snakes. There's something pretty primordial about it.
LAURIE ANDERSON

The problem with prototypes is they don't always work.
LAURIE ANDERSON

Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on va...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Performance art is about joy, about making something that's so full of kind of a wild joy that y...
LAURIE ANDERSON

At the School of Visual Arts in New York, you can get your degree in Net art, which is really a fant...
LAURIE ANDERSON

People only stutter at the beginning of the word. They're not afraid when they get to the end of...
LAURIE ANDERSON

I'm not usually where I think I am. It's kind of spooky.
LAURIE ANDERSON

I don't take compliments so well. I always hang my head and shuffle and kind of try to immediate...
LAURIE ANDERSON

Both parties have had a chance to sit down and think about the situation and we believe that this is...
BENGT HALSE

Blessed are those to whom Easter is not a hunt...but a find; not a greeting...but a proclamation; no...
ANDERSON

It doesn't rain at all in California. Once a month, a man drives through spraying Evian.
HUGH LAURIE

That last winter was a tragic story and I got no personal honour out of it but I was a witness to it...
LAURIE LEE

Introverts are more effective leaders of proactive employees. When you have a creative, energetic wo...
LAURIE HELGOE

If you ask an introvert a question, wait until she thinks about it. Introverts think before speaking...
LAURIE HELGOE

There's a lot to love about America - freedom, the melting pot of diversity, individualism - all...
LAURIE HELGOE

When an introvert is quiet, don't assume he is depressed, snobbish or socially deficient.
LAURIE HELGOE

As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we&#...
HUGH LAURIE

I've been lucky enough to travel widely. When you're based in Europe, it's very easy to ...
LAURIE GRAHAM

I have but one rule at my table. You may leave your cabbage, but you'll sit still and behave unt...
LAURIE GRAHAM

It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make a blues ...
HUGH LAURIE

Friendship is not possible between two women, one of whom is very well dressed.
LAURIE COLWIN

Barely halfway back, exhaustion sets in. What if I don’t make it? An edge of panic gets intercepte...
LAURIE NADEL

It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that act...
HUGH LAURIE

To me, he's a hero, ... He's not polite. He's not someone you want to take home to meet your mother,...
HUGH LAURIE

I grew up with an impatience with the anti-scientific. So I'm a bit miffed with our current love...
HUGH LAURIE

I feel when acting, I am sometimes overly self-conscious; I think, 'Going, no, don't, put yo...
HUGH LAURIE

I think there's a collective consciousness around the world that there are things beyond our con...
LAURIE HOLDEN

I wouldn't be able to act like Al Pacino or play the piano like Dr. John, But I could probably a...
HUGH LAURIE

I have my moments. Ever since I was a boy, I never was someone who was at ease with happiness. Too o...
HUGH LAURIE

If you really believe in what you're doing, work hard, take nothing personally and if something ...
LAURIE NOTARO

The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivit...
LAURIE COLWIN

The financing of all TV shows is dictated by finding an audience between 18 and 49. I have now passe...
HUGH LAURIE

I really, really, really want to do a silly romantic comedy where I can just have a crush on the guy...
LAURIE HOLDEN

I run six-to-eight miles a day, plus weights and aerobics in the lunch hour. I also lie a lot, which...
HUGH LAURIE

The strange thing - and this is one of the advantages of being incredibly shallow and superficial - ...
HUGH LAURIE

The thing about homebodies is that they can usually be found at home. I usually am, and I like to fe...
LAURIE COLWIN

I myself am not particularly interested in restaurant cooking. I don't really want to learn how ...
LAURIE COLWIN

I am not a fancy cook or an ambitious cook. I am a plain old cook.
LAURIE COLWIN

As everyone knows, there is only one way to fry chicken correctly. Unfortunately, most people think ...
LAURIE COLWIN

The best way to feel at ease in the kitchen is to learn at someone's knee.
LAURIE COLWIN

My idea of a good time abroad is to visit someone's house and hang out, poking into their cupboa...
LAURIE COLWIN

Cooking is like anything else: some people have an inborn talent for it. Some become expert by pract...
LAURIE COLWIN

It is my opinion that Norman Rockwell and his ilk have done more to make already anxious people feel...
LAURIE COLWIN

When it comes to cakes and puddings, savouries, bread and tea cakes, the English cannot be surpassed...
LAURIE COLWIN

I love to eat out, but even more, I love to eat in.
LAURIE COLWIN

Unlike some people who love to go out, I love to stay home.
LAURIE COLWIN

Somehow or other, I always end up in a kitchen feeding a crowd.
LAURIE COLWIN

Not everyone can write a book or paint a picture or write a symphony, but almost anyone can fall in ...
LAURIE COLWIN

It is not just the Great Works of mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what peo...
LAURIE COLWIN

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?

Copied!

Laurie Halse Anderson

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?

Laurie Halse Anderson

Share:

Related

More Laurie Halse Anderson