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.
There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.
It could achieve a lot if everyone in Burma could stop saying something is good if it is not good, or say something is just if it is not just.
The test of a people is what they can do when they're tired.
The right is ours. Have it we must. Use it we will.
When I first became a lawyer, only 2% of the bar was women. People would always think I was a secretary. In those days, professional women in the business world wore hats. So I started wearing hats.
The Cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats.
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