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.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Memory can empower or hinder us, depending on how we engage with our past.
In this quote, Laurie Halse Anderson highlights the dual nature of memory: it has the power to strengthen and support our journey through life, yet it can also trap us in painful recollections that prevent us from moving forward. The way we process and relate to our memories plays a critical role in shaping our present and future experiences—embracing positive memories can be a source of resilience, while clinging to negative ones can lead to emotional suffering.
Themes
MemoryStrengthPastFutureEmotional Healing
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity, this quote could be used to illustrate the importance of letting go of past hurts.
More from Laurie Halse Anderson
All quotes →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.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
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.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
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.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
Write about the emotions you fear the most.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
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