Victoria > Victoria's Quotes

“We are crayons and lunchboxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, Wintergirls

“Why are you being so mean?"
"Friends tell friends the truth."
"yeah, but not to hurt, to help.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, 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, Wintergirls

“If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip. ”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how anybody
does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving
from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots
inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing
every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of
ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one
sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no
grades below a B, because really, nobody’s average, not
around here. It’s a dance with complicated footwork and
a changing tempo.
I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find
her way to the exit. All eyes on me.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. 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. For one breath everything feels better.
Then it melts.
The bus drivers rev their engines and the ice cloud shatters. Everyone shuffles forward. They don't know what just happened. They can't remember.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down. ”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and cut and drink because you need an anesthetic and it works. For awhile. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's to late because you are maintaining it now,straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“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, Wintergirls

“The light beyond my eyes flashflashflashes with a hundred futures for me. Doctor. Ship's captain. Forest ranger. Librarian. Beloved of that man or that women or those children or those people who voted for me or who painted my picture. Poet. Acrobat. Engineer. Friend. Guardian. Avenging whirlwind. A million futures--not all pretty, not all long, but all of them mine. I do have a choice" - p. 271”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“Adrenaline kicks you in when you’re starving. That’s what nobody understands. Except for being hungry and cold, most of the time I feel like I can do anything. It gives me superhuman powers of smell and hearing. I can see what people are thinking, stay two steps ahead of them. I do enough homework to stay off the radar. Every night I climb thousands of steps into the sky to make me so exhausted that when I fall into bed, I don’t notice Cassie. Then suddenly it’s morning and I leap on the hamster wheel and it starts all over again.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world. The tiny elf dancer became a wooden doll whose strings were jerked by people not paying attention. I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness. Cassie did, too. We leaned on each other, lost in the dark and wandering in endless circles. She got too tired an went to sleep. 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, Wintergirls

“The dead do walk and haunt and crawl into your bed at night. Ghosts sneak into your head when you're not looking. Stars line up and volcanoes birth out bits of glass that foretell the future. Poison berries make girls stronger, but sometimes kill them. If you howl at the moon and swear on your blood, anything you desire will be yours. Be careful what you wish for. There's always a catch.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“I live in the borderlands. The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism. My visions echo and multiplymultiply. I don't know how to figure out what they mean. I can't tell where they start or if they will end.

But I know this. If they shrink my head any more, or float me away on an ocean of pills, I will never return.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“Even though I had a history in that house, it didn’t matter. You can’t go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have . . . is now.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“ If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don't want to cry anymore, you don't listen to that song anymore.
But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“Soul Alone by Hannah Baker

I meet your eyes
you don't even see me
You hardly respond
when I whisper
hello
Could be my soul mate
two kindred spirits
Maybe we're not
I guess we'll never
know

My own mother
you carried me in you
Now you see nothing
but what I wear
People ask you
how I'm doing
You smile and nod
don't let it end
there

Put me
underneath God's sky and
know me
don't just see me with your eyes
Take away
this mask of flesh and bone and
See me
for my soul

alone”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“I sat. And I thought. And the more I thought, connecting the events in my life, the more my heart collapsed.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don’t understand. Thoughts that aren’t even true—that aren’t really how we feel—but they’re running through our heads anyway because they’re interesting to think about.

If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“You can hear rumors. But you can't know them.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“I’m sorry.” Once again, those were the words. And now, anytime someone says I’m sorry, I’m going to think of her.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“After all, how often do we get a second chance?”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“I could picture life—school and everything else—continuing on without me. But I could not picture my funeral. Not at all. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine who would attend or what they would say.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why