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.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the brutality and harsh realities of life that are often ignored or overlooked.
In this quote, Laurie Halse Anderson presents a powerful image of a girl in a troubling and violent environment, emphasizing the urgency of recognizing and confronting the pain and anger that exists around us. The metaphor of being trained not to see these harsh realities, combined with the vivid imagery of grease, blood, and angry words, suggests a deep societal desensitization to violence and trauma, urging listeners to awaken their awareness and compassion for those in distress.
In practice
In a speech about social issues, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing violence in our communities.
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 can’t let go of the past.
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.
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.
Write about the emotions you fear the most.
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.
Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression - the blackness of their skin - and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.
No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul.
Defeat? I do not recognize the meaning of the word.
I've always seen first responders as unsung heroes and very special people because, when everyone else is running away from danger, they run into it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.