Laurie Halse Anderson - Speak (1999)

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Mr. Freeman sighs. "No imagination. What are you thirteen? Fourteen? You've already let them beat your creativity out of you!

Laurie Halse Anderson
They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.

Laurie Halse Anderson
She turns to us, acts surprised to see us, then does the bit with the back of the hand to the forehead. "You're lost!" "You're angry!" "You're in the wrong school!" "You're in the wrong country!" "You're on the wrong planet!

Laurie Halse Anderson
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
I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone to sit next to. A predator approaches: gray jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head. Probably a social studies teacher, hired to coach a blood sport.

Laurie Halse Anderson
Too much sun after a Syracuse winter does strange things to your head, makes you feel strong, even if you aren't.

Laurie Halse Anderson
I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?

Laurie Halse Anderson
I stuff my mouth with old fabric and scream until there are no sounds left under my skin.

Laurie Halse Anderson
Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to snuggle under the covers.

Laurie Halse Anderson
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
Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree, but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend - trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch - perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

Laurie Halse Anderson
They say they have noticed me drawing. I almost tell them right then and there. They noticed.

Laurie Halse Anderson
I see IT in the hallway. IT goes to Merryweather. IT is walking with Aubrey cheerleader. IT is my nightmare and I can't wake up.IT sees me. IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up.

Laurie Halse Anderson
I doubt trees are ever told to 'be the screwed-up ninth-grader.'

Laurie Halse Anderson
Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another book called "Symbolism in My Books?" If he didn't, then you could just be making all of this up. Does anyone really think this guy sat down and stuck all kinds of hidden meanings into his story? It's just a story.... But I think you are making all of this symbolism stuff up. I don't believe any of it.

Laurie Halse Anderson
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
It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

Laurie Halse Anderson
I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with.

Laurie Halse Anderson
Principal Principal: Where's your late pass, mister? Errant Student: I'm on my way to get one now. PP: But you can't be in the hall without a pass. ES: I know, I'm so upset. That's why I need to hurry, so I can get a pass. Principal Principal pauses with a look on his face like Daffy Duck's when Bugs is pulling a fast one. PP: Well, hurry up, then, and get that pass.

Laurie Halse Anderson
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
Don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself.

Laurie Halse Anderson
I make it through the first two weeks of school without a nuclear meltdown.

Laurie Halse Anderson
Do they choose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say nothing. I am nothing.

Laurie Halse Anderson
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
Why not draw naked guys, just to be fair? Naked women is art, naked guys a no-no, I bet. Probably because most painters are men.

Laurie Halse Anderson
It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.

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

Laurie Halse Anderson
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.

Laurie Halse Anderson
I see a girl caught in the remains of a holiday gone bad, with her flesh picked off day after day as the carcass dries out. The knife and fork are obviously middle-class sensibilities. The palm tree is a nice touch. A broken dream, perhaps? Plastic honeymoon, deserted island? Oh, If you put in a slice of pumpkin pie, it could be a deserted island!

Laurie Halse Anderson
My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into pieces.

Laurie Halse Anderson