Laurie Halse Anderson

No. Absolutely not. I forbid it. You'll have nightmares." "She was my friend! You must allow me. Why are you so horrid?" As soon as the angry words were out of my mouth, I knew I had gone too far. "Matilda!" Mother rose from her chair. "You are forbidden to pseak to me in that tone! Apologize at once.

Me: "All right, but you said we had to put emotion into our art. I don't know what that means. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel.

Where did you live before you came here?" I asked. "The moon," he said smoothly. "We left because the place had no atmosphere.

It's easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school.

My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman.

I can't do everything for you. You must walk alone to find your soul.

Look at the stupid, poor people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people. Look at the stupid, poor, burned-out people, look at their dead baby. It's death porn for the masses.

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.

I drift into the armpits of strangers, tasting their manic salt, and sleep to forget everything.

I won't take a real nap. 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.

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

The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don__ offer up anything. Don__ explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don__ accidentally put your head in a noose.

Grandma frowned and yelled something in Russian. She could have been saying, 'Open up, your best friend is here.' On the other hand, it could have been, 'America is a great country because of canned ravioli.

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.

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.

IT happened. There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding.

She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so...I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave it to her.

I__ given him bits and pieces of my peculiar life, but colored softer and funnier than they had been. I__ painted my dad as Don Quixote in a semi, on a quest for philosophical truths and the best cup of coffee in the nation.