Laurie Halse Anderson

“The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“Yes it is, because you can only be brave if you're scared.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys win.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

He says a million things without saying a word. I have never heard a more eloquent silence.

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“Ninth grade is a minor inconvenience to him. A zit-cream commercial before the Feature Film of Life.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“I drift into the armpits of strangers, tasting their manic salt, and sleep to forget everything.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“Sometimes I think high school is one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

I keep thinking that if I could just unzip my skin, step out of this body, then I would see who I…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“The fat, pumpkin-colored moon rose, turning bloodstains into shadows. All of the colors of shirts and jackets and uniforms paled to the…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so...I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live,…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl.…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

That can be the most painstaking aspect of being a teen, figuring out what the world really looks like. If you find…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“The cops say that thing:'anything you say will be used against you.' Self-incrimination. I looked it up. Three-point vocab word. So why…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, Mastercard, and American…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March. …. I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“Every single day, someone asks Mr. Stetman why we have to learn algebra. You can tell this causes him great personal pain.…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“Odysseus had twenty years to shed his battle skin. My grandfather left the battlefield in France and rode home in a ship…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

This is not our fight', the old man said. 'British or American, that is not the choice. You must choose your own…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

What do you miss about being alive?" The sound of my mom singing, a little off-key. The way my dad went to…

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“I don't know what I'm doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“You never think about the mall being closed. It’s always supposed to be there, like milk in the refrigerator or God.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

Each reader has to find her or his own message within a book.

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

When life sucks, read. They can't yell at you for that. And if they do, then you can ignore them.

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“I have to go. Boss has this weird idea that I should actually work while he’s paying me.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“The disorientation, the distraction, the difficulty focusing-all classic. Phase One signs of deliria.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“If I could turn into a wisp of smoke, I could slip into them and disappear.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“The gloaming that closed over us the cemetery had crawled inside his skin.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“I used to dream about bringing a knife to therapy and slicing her into pork chop-sized pieces.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

“You're not dead but you're not alive. You're a wintergirl.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson