Laurie Halse Anderson Quotes

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school.

I think I hid my singing talent from a lot of my friends at school because I didn't want to alienate anyone. If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off, when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique.

When I was in middle school, some of my so-called friends found a catalogue ad I did for Superman pajamas. They made as many copies as they could and pasted them up all over school.

Countries are like adolescent entering a dance ... they're sure everybody is thinking about nothing but their inadequacies.

I'm 16, and I'm still self-conscious. Everyone is at this age.

Seventh and eighth grade? That's the worst. I think it's the lowest point of life. All I remember is painful acne and terrible clothes. And lots of getting dumped.

It truly is a little intimidating to go speak at a middle school. Sure, on one hand the kids are only around 13 years old, but on the other hand, merely going back there reactivates the dorky, miserable feeling of being that age again. It isn't easy. As soon as I arrived I could almost feel the braces on my teeth, the don't-look-at-me slouch of my shoulders, the feathered wings of my bangs.

On the first day of middle school I wore high-heeled shoes that you weren't allowed to wear. I remember being so embarrassed because in every class I went to they kept pointing out that I couldn't wear these shoes. I wanted to call my mom and have her bring me new shoes!

When you are a high school girl, there is nothing more miraculous than a high school boy.

I was always the weirdo at school. When I became a model [at 16], I didn't tell anybody. I was terrified that the kids would rip me to pieces.

No one escapes the teenage years without a lot of challenges. I had many. I was awkward. Petrified of boys.

I was a teenage girl once. I was not an overweight teenage girl, but I had really bad acne when I was 11 or 12 years old. It was heart-rending, and people made fun of me. People whispered when I walked by in the hallways, and I was sure they were whispering about me. My adult perspective is maybe they weren't.

I was in love with a girl in my class when I was in primary school, and she obviously thought I was a freak, so that wasn't working out. And the the guys in my class, every two weeks they'd say, 'Hey, we spoke to her, and she really likes you now. You should go and ask her again.' And then I'd go and ask her again.

In high school, I was that guy who was trying to be cool with everybody, but I never really had a core group of friends.

There's something incredibly vulnerable about middle school for me. We're really impressionable during that period. The cement's still wet, so to speak, and a lot of things later in life are born during that season.

I was this eggheady kid, the one who was consistently beaten up and picked last for the baseball teams.

In high school, I remember feeling like a Jughead - like I was a little bit weird and kind of emotional. I also remember feeling like an Archie - sort of the leader of the pack.

I actually think the reason I am interested in certain parts is because I was such a dweeb in high school. When you are such a loser, it's a helpful way in to a lot of characters because even very powerful people are not all that powerful really. They all had a high school. That vulnerability is completely permanent and, as an actor, it's a good thing.

My family went on a cruise, and I got a terrible haircut. FYI: Never get your hair cut on a cruise. And I had, like, this blonde curly 'fro, and I walked into the gym the first day back in seventh grade and everyone was staring at me, and for some reason I thought, I know what I need to do! And I just started sprinting from one end of the gym to the other, and I thought it was hilarious. But nobody else at that age really did. It was genuinely weird

You know the awkward class photo when you're sitting there for your school picture and you're 14 or something and you've got braces, and you don't know how to smile, and you've got a hard-on.

My middle school experience was pretty hellish. There was a lot of negativity, a lot of bullying and a lot of insecurity. It was the reason I ended up going to my arts high school because I was pretty bullied.

As you may know from my life story, my cousin who was my soul mate went to a public school. And he died of AIDS. Would I and my brother have been able to resist the lure of drugs in the surrounding schools? Who knows.

We're not too young for love, just too young for about everything there is that goes with love.

What a curious kind of fool a girl is. Never been licked in school. What's a licking?

I wonder why we always deny love. I remember in middle school, if you were accused of the crime of loving, you screamed denials constantly and stopped ever even looking at the boy you were accused of liking. The boys could destroy each other by yodeling, "An-drew lo-oves Jen-nie," and both Andrew and Jennie would flinch and blush. Love is this great thing that most songs and books and poems and lives are all about. So the minute we actually think there might be love around, we start laughing and pretending and hiding from it.