If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to provide guidance and understanding to teenagers through writing.
Laurie Halse Anderson emphasizes the importance of writing as a tool for educating and supporting young people. She believes that her purpose on Earth is fulfilled when her work resonates with teenagers, helping them navigate the complexities of their lives and find clarity in their experiences.
In practice
In a speech at a youth conference, an author might say, 'I believe that if I can write a book that helps the world make more sense to a teen, then thatβs why I was put on this planet.'
Memory cuts both ways; it can either provide you with tremendous strength and a foundation to carry you through your life, or it can be a demon that just ruins your present and your future because you canβt let go of the past.
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.
This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.
A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.
I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.
Write about the emotions you fear the most.
A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.
Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.
Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.
Research confirms that great teachers change lives. Students with one highly effective elementary school teacher are more likely to go to college, less likely to become pregnant as teens, and earn tens of thousands more over their lifetimes.
We don't care really about children as a society and television reflects that indifference to children as human beings.
Since belief determines behavior, doesn't it make sense that we should be teaching ethical, moral values in every home and in every school in America?
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