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.
Of course humans like to explore, and we should. There's nothing wrong with that. But it's more than that. It's essential for your children and your children's children.
I didn't want to set up a women's studies program. I thought women should learn to operate in a coeducational atmosphere, because, especially in national security and international affairs, it's male-dominated.
There is so much we can learn from TV. It's a window on the world.
Imprisoned professors taught imprisoned students free theology.
I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man.
Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.
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