“In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“We are crayons and lunchboxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Do I want to die from the inside out or the outside in?”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March.
.........
I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world...I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.
I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness...Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.
I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.
There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.
I am thawing.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“I failed eating, failed drinking, failed not cutting myself into shreds. Failed friendship. Failed sisterhood and daughterhood. Failed mirrors and scales and phone calls. Good thing I'm stable. ”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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...”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“What do I want?
The answer to that question does not exist.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn't sick; I was strong.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Why? You want to know why?
Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.
Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all, "a disappointment." Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and drink and cut because you need the anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's too late because you are mainlining it now, straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.
Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you.
"Why?" is the wrong question.
Ask "Why not?”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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, quote from Wintergirls
“Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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, quote from Wintergirls
“You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beating heart. Soon you’ll cross the border and be with me. I’m so stoked. I miss you wicked.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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 eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all "a disappointment." Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“He doesn't see my breasts or my waist or my hips. He only sees the nightmare.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through. ”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“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.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“I wish I had cancer. I will burn in hell for that, but it's true. ”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“Why are you being so mean?"
"Friends tell friends the truth."
"yeah, but not to hurt, to help.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
“I can’t tell anymore when I’m asleep and when I’m awake, or which is worse.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
Born place: in Potsdam, New York, The United States
Born date October 23, 2018
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“After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, think necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to speak another sea elephant.
Ulape would have laughed at me, and other would have laughed, too -- my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, bu in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the other had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do no talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
― Scott O'Dell, quote from Island of the Blue Dolphins
“I’ve been kissed by men who did a very good job. But they don’t give kissing their whole attention. They can’t. No matter how hard they try parts of their minds are on something else. Missing the last bus—or their chances of making the gal—or their own techniques in kissing—or maybe worry about jobs, or money, or will husband or papa or the neighbors catch on. Mike doesn’t have technique . . . but when Mike kisses you he isn’t doing anything else. You’re his whole universe . . . and the moment is eternal because he doesn’t have any plans and isn’t going anywhere. Just kissing you.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls
“I have all these great genes, but they're recessive. That's the problem here.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, quote from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
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Wings of Fire: An Au...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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