I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?
Interpretation
This quote reflects the struggle to cope with past experiences and seek a path forward despite confusion and pain.
In this quote, Laurie Halse Anderson expresses the chaotic emotions that accompany survival through difficult experiences. The speaker acknowledges their confusion and issues but also seeks a way to confront and cut through their painful memories and fears, suggesting a desire for healing and clarity in their journey of self-discovery.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, I would use this quote to illustrate the struggle of finding strength in difficult times.
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.
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.
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.
Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Jesus has many who love the kingdom of God, but few who bear a cross. He has many who desire His comfort, but few who desire His suffering. All want to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for Him. He writes; there are many who admire his miracles, but there are few who follow in the humiliation of the cross.
My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I've been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans.
Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.
We’re going to foment our own revolution. So I say to the women out there in America, let’s keep this fight going! Put on your lipstick, square your shoulders, suit up, and let’s fight for a new American revolution where women are paid equal pay for equal work, and let’s end wage discrimination in this century once and for all!
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