Shout Laurie Halse Anderson Quotes

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 cuz when you figure out what's eating you alive you can slay it

We should teach our girls that snapping is ok, instead of waiting for someone else to break them.

Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.

Shame, turned inside out, is rage.

Eve ate the apple because Adam was afraid

the false innocence you render for them by censoring truth protects only you

the only thing that helped me breathe was opening a book

I was in a race to see if I would die from the outside in or the inside out.

I wanted a coffin made of wood from trees not yet planted my appetite for time was growing.

Trying to figure out what you want to do, who you want to be, is messy as hell; the best anyone can hope for is to figure out the next step.

This is the story of a girl who lost her voice and wrote herself a new one.

This is not a resting bitch face This is a touch-me-and-die face

This note about anatomy from me to you is for the remembering that after you speak after you shout your open mouth will breathe in the light for which you've hungered and your backbone will unfurl, until you can again dance to the beat of your steadfast heart.

Take your age the first time a stranger touched your body with danger in his hands, evil-minded... But it's not usually a stranger, is it<

untreated pain is a cancer of the soul that can kill you

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.

I'm not wearing this!" I shouted. "Wear it or die," Mom shouted back.

The false innocence you render for them by censoring truth protects only you.

Pain won't be contained by bars or marks your scars deserve attention, too.

When one suffers, all are weakened, but when everyone thrives, we dance.

The taste of shame smells like stubborn vomit in your hair lingering no matter how often you was it sometimes you have to shave yourself bald and start again like a newly hatched chick leaving the faint rot of broken magic in shattered eggshell pieces behind you.

But I had never seen a first aid kit for the spirit...

stories entertain engage, outrage uplift, help us overcome our troubles . . . stories activate, motivate, celebrate, cerebrate, snare our fates and share our great incarnations of hope

She snapped," they said. "Couldn't take it anymore." "Reached her breaking point." We should teach our girls that snapping is okay instead of waiting for someone else to break them.

Sisters, drop everything. Walk away from the lake, leaning on each other's shoulders when you need the support. Feel the contradictions of another truth ready to be born: shame turned inside out is rage.

Rape wounds deeply, splits open your core with shrapnel. The stench of the injury attracts maggots which hatch into clouds of doubt and self-loathing the dirt you feel inside you nourishes anxiety, depression, and shame poisoning your blood, festering in your brain until you will do anything to stop feeling the darkness rising within anything to stop feeling– untreated pain is a cancer of the soul that can kill you

I learned then that words had such power some must never be spoken and was thus robbed of both tongue and the truth.

translates as “cozy” but is much, much more; hygge is sitting on a dark winter’s night with friends or family, the room candlelit, everyone knitting or crocheting sipping coffee or beer, eating pastry or smørrebrød talking, talking, listening, talking, enjoying the pleasure of kindred spirits with the winds howling outside

Defense lawyer did his job by attacking the victim shouting that she drank, she danced, she dressed to look good she wanted it, she followed him liked it rough or planned on marriage or extortion as she cried on the stand, long blonde hair in front of her face, a curtain for her sanity, he painted her into a corner with accusations

Persephone tucks a lock of Ophelia's hair behind the shell of her ear and Ophelia takes Persephone's hand and gently kisses the palm.

When we were girls we rode horses disguised as bicycles

I'm sorry you didn't get the help you needed. You deserved a soft afghan wrapped around you, People to hold your hands while you learned to walk again, So stand with us now.

The opposite of innocence is not sin. Dearly beloved, the opposite of innocence is strength.

Home was still hellish, afire with the painful realization that no matter how much I loved my parents my love could not fix them

Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.

Trying to figure out what you want to do, who you want to be, is messy as hell; at best anyone can hope for is to figure out the next step.

Most relationships come with expiration dates just like milk and bread. Some go sour before you can taste them,

And after the crop is harvested the fields cleared of rocks and stubble swords beaten into plowshares dirt furrowed the new seeds, planted deep and cared for, will grow into strong children with kind hands and strong bodies and honorable hearts the first generation unscarred untouchable that's your loss and our triumph

the mouth they want to eat with, smile with, sing with, paint with glitter, lip- stick, and stain with grape popsicles or wine from a dark sea, a mouth to whisper with love, to open wide and swallow what love offers, hungry always for more.

The playground was a war of girls versus boys and now I feel shame cuz some kids must have wanted to stand with the other team, and some must have wanted new teams entirely, but the world was drawn for us binary in clumsy chalk lines, and we'd try to do better when we were in charge.

Congratulations," she said formally. "You have gradated.

We're all born to fight, but few are ever trained. Instead, they tell us "Be nice.

slowly I can't stand this bled into I can't stay here trickled through I should leave swelled into I want to leave rose into a tidal wave of I'm going

I unscrewed the top of my head and rinsed out my brainpan with salt water from the North Sea and so began my next life

two opposites of rape To have sex is human. To make love, Divine.

That's the story I am dying to knit together, if I could only find the pattern.

My father stood and said, "I will not live without my mind," then shook the doctor's hand and told me it was time to go home.

Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech. —Benjamin Franklin, 1722

But I had never seen a first aid kit for the spirit or heard the word "trauma" to describe the way I'd hide, slide through the days unseen or scream into pillows at the bottom of my closet door closed even though no one was home. Rape wounds deeply, splits open your core with shrapnel. The stench of the injury attracts maggots which hatch into clouds of doubt and self-loathing the dirt you feel inside you nourishes anxiety, depression, and shame poisoning your blood, festering in your brain until you will do anything to stop feeling the darkness rising within anything to stop the feeling - untreated pain is a cancer of the soul that can kill you

I didn't speak up when that boy raped me, instead I scalded myself in the shower and turned me into the ghost of the girl I once was, my biggest fear being that my father, no stranger to gaming with the devil, would kill that boy and it would be my fault.

Sisters of the torn shirts. Sisters of the chase around the desk, casting couch, hotel room, file cabinet. Sisters dragging shattered dreams, bruised hopes, ambitions abandoned in the dirt. Sisters fishing one by one in the lake of shame. Hooks baited with fear always come back empty. Truth dawns slow when you've been beaten and lied to, but it burns hard and bright once it wakes. Sisters, drop everything. Walk away from the lake, leaning on each other's shoulders when you need the support. Feel the contractions of another truth ready to be born. Shame turned inside out is rage.

And so, with extra Leslie help and a chorus of angels disguised as teachers and librarians for years unstinting with love and hours of practice, those ants finally marched in straight lines for me shaped words, danced sentences, constructed worlds for a girl finally learning how to read I unlocked the treasure chest and swallowed the key.

Don't get killed. Don't get robbed. Don't get billed for jobs that were abandoned. Don't let your house burn or your pipes burst or your children curse. Don't let your purse get stolen. Don't get trapped underwater. Don't get food poisoning or the flu. For God's sake get vaccinated. Don't get cancer. Seriously. Do. Not. Get. Cancer. Don't get t-boned by a drunk. Don't get struck by lightning. Don't get allergies. Don't get depressed. Don't get noticed by the IRS. Don't get catfished or gaslit. Don't get ghosted by an ex. Don't get talked into a bigger car. Don't get bit by a rabid dog. Don't get your boo angry. Don't get cheated on. Don't get called out, dragged, tagged in pics you don't remember. Don't get raped cause the jack asses and idiots will say that's your fault, too.

the necessary, impossible goodbye that had suddenly, in slow motion, arrived

I could only fix myself

the false innocence you render for them by censoring truth protects only you

Some people grow up knowing what they want to do. They color inside the lines, study at the right school, check off the boxes, and in the end? They are handed the grown-up life they've dreamed of. (That's mostly bullshit for the record.) Trying to figure out what you want to do, who you want to be is messy as hell. The best anyone can hope for is to figure out the next step.

She wrote in tiny letters that she was not outcasted for the exact same reason that Melinda got outcasted. But outcasting is hurtful, no matter who you are or what happened.

Melinda's trick is looking hard in the mirror, Absolving herself and cracking open doors to the next place. But the girl at that school, so haunted, smashed all the reflections boarded up the windows and bolted the doors, forever stuck at 15 years old judged to serve a life sentence for what they did.

boom! powering underwater, mermaid made real I felt my gills growing I could breathe without air.

12. I wasn't just encased in hardening concrete up to my chin; it was pouring down my throat. I was in a race to see if I would die from the outside in or the inside out.

This is life with your head inside the jaws of the beast.

Rich people scorn the way the poor buy lottery tickets, but what would you pay for an hour of untainted hope, of happiness unfettered? If the ticket had my mother's name on it I'd dance across minefields for the chance.

Some people grow up knowing what they want to do; they color inside the lines, study at the right school, check off the boxes, and in the end they are handed the grown-up life they've dreamed of. That's mostly bullshit, for the record. Trying to figure out what you want to do, who you want to be, is messy as hell; the best anyone can hope for is to figure out the next step.

Most relationships come with expiration dates just like milk and bread. Some go sour before you can taste them.

too many grown-ups tell kids to follow their dreams like that's going to get them somewhere Auntie Laurie says to follow your nightmares instead cuz when you figure out what's eating you alive you can slay it

my first day of ninth grade had no assembly no "First Ten Lies They Tell You in High School" no showdown with Mr. Neck Speak is a novel rooted in facts, to be sure, but a story bred with its own DNA an invasive species growing out of a stump of a tree hit by lightning growing from the girl who survived

Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.

(Eve ate the apple because Adam was afraid, for the record.)

But anyways, you let me down, Ken, but I've made my peace with it. With you. With the confused girl-child who used to be me. And Barbie? I've got nothing to say to that bitch. Not till she learns to walk flat-footed, like a real woman.

free the bleed We bleed with the moon near half our lives but still some guys think it's freaky disgusting, unnatural The location of the vagina between where we pee and where we poop is a design flaw, maybe, but it doesn't account for the shaming for the sense that somehow women are weaker or foul or damned because we bleed once a moon our bodies are muddy rivers overflowing the banks to fertilize the fields, hurricaning oceans with the energy of time, tide, and galaxies, silver ice caps defying the sun's feeble attempts to melt us we bleed and grow stronger some of us breed, pouring blood into love, planting his seed in our egg creating life and feeding it our red-coated strength birthing in a torrent of salt and blood we are mountains don't call it a period: call it an exclamation point

face my truth This is not a resting bitch face This is a touch-me-and-die face

When I was little I had no idea what she'd been through. She used to say "Affection is a sign of weakness" which totally baffled me because she should be both affectionate and strong. I'd give anything to understand all of the layers of tragedy that forced her shell to become so hard.

writing rage-poems by the sea pen, hands, claws stained with ink until the bottle runs dry and then I write in blood, spit, and fire lantern's light in the mirror scattering the dark

untreated pain is a cancer of the soul that can kill you

Auntie Laurie says follow your nightmares instead cuz when you figure out what's eating you alive you can slay it

...and i wrote My Name in big letters got my first badge, a library card

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 US 853, 872 (1982), when the Supremes memorably sang: Supreme Court precedent condemns school officials who remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.

when I wasn't stoned the only thing that helped me breathe was a book

scars may look stronger than unwounded skin, but they're not once broken, we're hurt again, or worse

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 cuz when you figure out what's eating you alive you can slay it