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 in front of them stomping your feet.Collection: Daughter
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.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Hurt
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.Collection: Sports
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.Collection: Elephants
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.Collection: Sleep
You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.Collection: Hurt
I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs. Nobody can make it stop.Collection: Eye
Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and cut and drink because you need an anesthetic and it works. For awhile. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's to late because you are maintaining it now,straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.Collection: Cutting
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.Collection: Blood
Because I am still a little girl who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and you.Collection: Girl
Did you read last nights assignments?" Say "yes'" and get hammered again. Say "no'" and the same thing would happen.Collection: Night
He doesn't see my breasts or my waist or my hips. He only sees the nightmare.Collection: Eating Disorder
I'm learning how to taste everything.Collection: Recovery
I see IT in the hallway. IT goes to Merryweather. IT is walking with Aubrey cheerleader. IT is my nightmare and I can't wake up.IT sees me. IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up.Collection: Together
None of [the books are] worth reading. There are no fairy tales, no faerie tails, no sword-swinging princesses or lightning-throwing gods.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Cheating
Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.Collection: Wish
The light beyond my eyes flashflashflashes with a hundred futures for me. Doctor. Ship's captain. Forest ranger. Librarian. Beloved of that man or that women or those children or those people who voted for me or who painted my picture. Poet. Acrobat. Engineer. Friend. Guardian. Avenging whirlwind. A million futures--not all pretty, not all long, but all of them mine. I do have a choice" - p. 271Collection: Children
What do you miss about being alive?" The sound of my mom singing, a little off-key. The way my dad went to all my swim meets and I could hear his whistle when my head was underwater, even if he did yell at me afterward for not trying harder. I miss going to the library. I miss the smell of clothes fresh out of the dryer. I miss diving off the highest board and nailing the landing. I miss waffles" - p. 272.Collection: Mom
The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.Collection: Sun
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.Collection: Zero
Eating plain toast will detonate her. "I'll have some honey." When the bread is done I scrape on a microscopic layer of it and pour a cup of coffee, black. She pretends not to listen or watch as I crunch through my breakfast. I pretend that I don't notice her pretending.Collection: Coffee
Hannah was about to burst with excitement, which would have been disgusting because she would have sprayed blood, guts and glitter in every direction.Collection: Blood
In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sports cars on their sixteenth birthdays. Teacher smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the first names of the staff. They are the Pride of the Trojans. Oops – I mean Pride of the Blue Devils. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship the stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancún during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before prom.Collection: Sports
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.Collection: Girl
The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.Collection: Eating Disorder
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.Collection: Stupid
I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with.Collection: Attitude
This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?Collection: Army
It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.Collection: Notebook
We swore sacred oaths to be strong and to save the planet and to be friends forever.Collection: Strong
Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It's not like you can blame a mattress when people don't tie it down tight enough.Collection: Ties
I want to tell him that it's just a stupid car, but bits of me are scattered all over town; the graveyard, school, Cassie's room, the motel, and standing in from of the sink in my mother's kitchen. It takes too much energy to gather all the bits together, so I just sit there and watch him implode.Collection: Mother
Rumors are spread by jealous peopleCollection: Jealous
I understood what triggered her earthquakes, most of them.Collection: Earthquakes
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.Collection: Believe
I have never heard a more eloquent silence.Collection: Silence
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.Collection: Space
What do I want? The answer to that question does not exist.Collection: Doe
I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.Collection: Borders
I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy...Collection: Reading
She offered herself to the big, bad wolf and didn’t scream when he took the first bite.Collection: Firsts
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.Collection: Firsts
Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn’t sick; I was strong.Collection: Strong
Too much sun after a Syracuse winter does strange things to your head, makes you feel strong, even if you aren’t.Collection: Strong