Quotes from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“I'd treat myself to a reading marathon all weekend. All the ice cream I could eat, all the pages I could read. Heaven.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“You're the one who doesn't understand, I've been standing on the edge with you for years.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Where did you live before you came here?" I asked.
"The moon," he said smoothly. "We left because the place had no atmosphere.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Killing people is easier than it should be.” Dad put on his beret. “Staying alive is harder.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Having a friend made everything else suck less.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“wats yr typ?
people who can spell”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Note: 'family' does NOT only mean a biological unit composed of people who share genetic markers or legal bonds, headed by a heterosexual-mated pair. Family is much, much more than that.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“The world is crazy. You need a license to drive a car and go fishing. You don't need a license to start a family. Two people have sex and BAM! Perfectly innocent kid is born whose life will be screwed up by her parents forever.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“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.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Do you know how much women loathe it when guys think every show of negative emotion is tied to our menstrual cycle, like we're sheep or something?”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“I kissed him until everything that hurt inside me melted into a pool of black water so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom. As long as I was touching him, I wouldn’t drown.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Can't escape pain, kiddo. Battle through it and you get stronger.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“My good sense bitch slapped my estrogen and told her to get a grip.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Everyone is born a freak," notes Hayley. "Every newborn baby, wet and hungry and screaming, is a fresh-hatched freak who wants to have a good time and make the world a better place. . . . Most teenagers wind up in high school. And high school is where the zombification process becomes deadly.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“My earbuds were in, but I wasn't playing music. I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“The laws of the universe dictate that for every positive action, there is an unequal and sucky reaction.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Leaning against my father, the sadness finally broke open inside me, hollowing out my heart and leaving me bleeding. My feet felt rooted in the dirt. There were more than two bodies buried here. Pieces of me that I didn’t even know were under the ground. Pieces of dad, too.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Until then we're going to keep making memories like this, moments when we're the only two people in the whole world. And when we get scared or lonely or confused, we'll pull out these memories and wrap them around us and they'll make us feel safe. And strong.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Apologies mean nothing if you don't mean it.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“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, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Ouch," he said.
"Move your foot."
"No."
"Go away."
"Glad to see you, too."
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"You missed the bus," he said.
"I'm sick."
"Need chicken soup?"
"Actually, it's my period," I lied. "Killer cramps."
"Chocolate and a heating pad?"
"How do you know that?"
"I have an older sister and my mom is a kick-ass feminist," he said. "I'm probably the only guy in school who can buy tampons without having a seizure. Look, at that, I can even say the word. 'Tampon, tampon, tampon.' If you say it enough, it stops sounding like a word, know what I mean?”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“Yes it is, because you can only be brave if you're scared.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“The books I'd checked out of the library earlier in the week were still stacked on my bureau, whispering my name and begging to be read.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“I am an owl, bird of the night. I see everything. I know everything.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“I turned the page in Slaughterhouse Five, a forbidden book at Belmont because we were too young to read about soldiers swearing and bombs dropping and bodies blowing up and war sucking.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“The gloaming that closed over us the cemetery had crawled inside his skin.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

“All of my answers were drawings of armored unicorns.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from The Impossible Knife of Memory

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Popular quotes

“The more I read, the more I felt connected across time to other lives and deeper sympathies. I felt less isolated. I wasn’t floating on my little raft in the present; there were bridges that led over to solid ground. Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.
Literature is common ground. It is ground not managed wholly by commercial interests, nor can it be strip-mined like popular culture—exploit the new thing then move on.
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“Betrayal isn't ridiculous. It's the reason empires fall.”
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“....Master Li turned bright red while he scorched the air with the Sixty Sequential Sacrileges with which he had won the all-China Freestyle Blasphemy Competition in Hangchow three years in a row.”
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