Laurie Halse Anderson Quotes

Ever step you take is forever. You cant make it go away. None of it. You understand what I'm sayin?

There is a moment when nothing can be wiped out and left behind any more, when there is only reality and reality is horrifying.

The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.

I can't take it back. I can't take anything back. So I don't regret it.

The past can never be erased. It is always going to be there.

What you have lost will not be returned to you; it always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on, or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.

It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was.

I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.

You can't conquer reality by running away from it.

You can never get the smell of smoke out. Like the smell of failure in life.

Forgetting lets you live without the pain for a moment but remembering hits hard.

What is already woven cannot be undone. It will not make the trees grow again for you to bring the building down on our heads.

I didn't mean I'd seen everything, John Grady said. I know you didn't. I just meant I'd seen some things I'd as soon not of. I know it. There's hard lessons in this world. What's the hardest? I dont know. Maybe it's just that when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back. Yessir.

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.

I needed, I decided, to really know her, because I needed more to remember. Before I could begin the shameful process of forgetting the how and the why of her living and dying, I needed to learn it: How. Why. When. Where. What.

Were it not better to forget than to remember and regret?

I just didn't want to admit that he was dead.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

I like to say there's certain things you can't take back: One of them is 'I love you,' and one of them is bullets.

What's done can't be undone.

Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right.

Even God cannot change the past.

It’s over, and can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, ven they cut the wrong man’s head off.

There are no furloughs for victims. There is no return from the grave.

History turns in one direction only, and you can't get it back. You can only draw conclusions.