Top 350 Laurie Halse Anderson Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Freedom would not be handed to us like a gift. Freedom had to be fought for and taken.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

152. “I doubt trees are ever told to ‘be the screwed-up ninth-grader.’”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

153. “Slush is frozen over. People say that winter lasts forever, but it’s because they obsess over the thermometer. North in the mountains, the maple syrup is trickling. Brave geese punch through the thin ice left on the lake. Underground, pale seeds roll over in their sleep. Starting to get restless. Starting to dream green.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

154. “The suffragettes were all about speaking up, screaming for their rights. You can’t speak up for your right to be silent.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

155. “I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

156. “It would have eased her mind if I thanked her for wanting to buy me away from Madam. I tried to be grateful but could not. A body does not like being bought and sold like a basket of eggs, even if the person who cracks the shells is kind.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

157. “My bed is sending out serious nap rays.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

158. “So, she tells me, the words dribbling out with the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

159. “I lean into the mirror. Eyes after eyes after eyes stare back at me. Am I in there somewhere? A thousand eyes blink.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

160. “I’ve got a cake rising,” Eliza said. “I’m not leaving that for any man.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

161. “I know my head isn’t screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closest is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

162. “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.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

163. “Let me ask you something. We’re fighting for freedom, right?” I picked my words carefully. “So why is that man allowed to own Baumfree and Bett?” “Well,” he said slowly, “we’re fighting for our freedom. Not theirs.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

164. “Non riesco a fermarmi, ma non posso andare avanti.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

165. “They keep asking questions like “What is wrong with you?” and “Do you think this is cute?” How can I answer? I don’t have to. They don’t want to hear anything I have to say.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

166. “Do I want to die from the inside out or the outside in?”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

167. “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.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

168. “Plants make way more seeds than they need, because they know that life is not perfect and all the seeds won’t make it.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

169. “Yesterday’s dirt and mistakes have moved through me. I am shiny and pink inside, clean. Empty is good. Empty is strong.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

170. “Too many grown ups tell kids to follow their dreams, like that’s going to get them somewhere. Auntie Laurie says follow your nightmares instead. Because when you figure out what’s eating you alive, you can slay it.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

171. “I looked in the mirror and realized that I was already dead. I let you kill me one piece at a time, starting when I was, what? Eight years old? Nine? You killed yourself and then you came after us.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

172. “I try to read while eating alone, but the noise gets between my eyes and the page and I can’t see through it.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

173. “I am an iceberg drifting toward the edge of the map.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

174. “Don’t forget how to be gentle,” she warned. “Don’t let the hardness of the world steal the softness of your heart.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

175. “The world turns upside down every day.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

176. “Before the suffragettes came along, women were treated like dogs... They were dolls, with no thoughts, or opinions, or voices of their own. Then the suffragettes marched in, full of loud, in-your-face ideas. They got arrested and thrown in jail, but nothing shut them up. They fought and fought until they earned the rights they should’ve had all along.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

177. “I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

178. “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.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

179. “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

180. “There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

181. “She says suicide is for cowards. This is an uglynasty Momside. She bought a book about it. Tough love. Sour sugar. Barbed velvet. Silent talk. She leaves the book on the back of the toilet to educate me. She has figured out that I don’t say too much. It bugs her.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

182. “This is not our fight,′ the old man said. ‘British or American, that is not the choice. You must choose your own side, find your road through the valley of darkness that will lead you to the river Jordan.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

183. “The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

184. “I can’t stop biting my lips. It looks like my mouth belongs to someone else, someone else, someone I don’t even know.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

185. “My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn’t think I would make it.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

186. “The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

187. “I keep thinking that if I could just unzip my skin, step out of this body, then I would see who I really am.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

188. “My parents didn’t raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. How else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddesses on Monday?”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

189. “Gloaming,” Dad said. “What?” “That word I couldn’t remember. Gloaming. That short, murky time between half-light and dark.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

190. “The warped perception of time is a hallmark of trauma.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

191. “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.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

192. “Ghosts are waiting in the shadows of the room, patient dull shimmers. The others can see them, too, I know it. We’re all afraid to talk about what stares at us from the dark.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

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

— Laurie Halse Anderson

194. “Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it. He doesn’t hear the impact, can’t smell the blood.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

195. “You can only be brave if you’re scared.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

196. “The night sky stretched on forever above me, the stars flung like glass beads and pearls on a black velvet cloak.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

197. “I have this halfway place, a rest stop on the road to sleep, where I can stay for hours. I don’t even need to close my eyes, just stay safe under the covers and breathe.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

198. “I am a gluttonous, gorging failure. A waste. My body isn’t used to high-sugar carbs laced with witchcraft. It can barely cope with soup and crackers.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

199. “I just thought of a great theory that explains everything. When I went to that party, I was abducted by aliens. They have created a fake Earth and fake high school to study me and my reactions. This certainly explains cafeteria food.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

200. “I believe that you’ve created a metaphorical universe in which you can express your darkest fears. In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves, and sometimes we do such a good job, we lose track of reality.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson