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Quotes from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson...
1. "THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL
1. We are here to help you.
2. You will have enough time to get to your class before the bell rings.
3. The dress code will be enforced.
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
5. Our football team will win the championship this year.
6. We expect more of you here.
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
8. Your schedule was created with your needs in mind.
9. Your locker combination is private.
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly."
2. "Ivy is in this class. She sits by the door. I keep staring at her, trying to make her look at me. That happens in movies- people can feel it when other people stare at them and they just have to turn around and say something. Either Ivy has a great force field, or my laser vision isn't very strong. She won't look back at me." -Melinda
3. "How could she know this? I don't know what I'm doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. I'll worry about making it out of ninth grade alive. Then I'll think about a career path.
4. "Just in case we forget that 'weareheretogetagoodfoundationsowecangotocollegeliveuptoourpotentialgetagoodjoblivehappilyeverafterandgotoDisneyWorld,' we have a Job Day."
5. "If I ever form my own clan, we'll be the Anti-Cheerleaders. We will not sit in the bleachers. We will wander underneath them and commit mild acts of mayhem."
6. "The Pilgrims gave thanks at Thanksgiving because the Native Americans saved their sorry butts from starving."
7. "David Petrakis My Lab Partner cuts his apple into eight equal wedges. He doesn't say a word. He is in the middle of a Pre-Med Week. David can't make up his mind between pre-med and pre-law. Ninth grade is a minor inconvenience to him. A zit-cream commercial before the Feature Film of Life."
8. "Rebellion is in the air. We only have a week left before Winter Break. Students are getting away with murder and the staff is too worn out to care."
9. "Maybe I'll be an artist if I grow up."
10. "Nothing good ever happens at lunch. The cafeteria is a giant sound stage where they film daily segments of Teenage Humiliation Rituals. And it smells gross."
11. "It is easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school."
12. "Are they talking about me? They're certainly laughting enough. I chomp my sandwich and it barfs mustard on my shirt. Maybe they're planning the next Project. They could mail snowballs to weather-deprived children in Texas. They could knit goat-hair blankets for shorn sheep. I imagine what Heather might look like in ten years, after two children and seventy pounds. It helps a little."
13. "Mom says I take after Dad's side of the family. They're mostly cops and insurance salesmen who bet on football games and smoke disgusting cigars. Dad says I take after Mom's side of the family. They're farmers who grow rocks and poison ivy. They don't say much, visit dentists, or read."
14. "Mr. Freeman is a jerk. Instead of leaving me alone to 'find my muse' (a real quote, I swear), he lands on the stool next to me and starts criticizing. What is wrong with my tree? He overflows with words describing how bad it sucks. It's stiff, unnatural, it doesn't flow. It is an insult to trees everywhere. I agree. My tree is hopeless. It isn't art; it's an excuse not to take sewing class."
15. "They're on their way to the foreign wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always there, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke on too much American."
16. "TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL
1. You will use algebra in your adult lives.
2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away.
3. Students must stay on campus for lunch.
4. The new textbooks will arrive any day now.
5. Colleges care about more than your SAT scores.
6. We are enforcing the dress code.
7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon.
8. Our bus drivers are highly trained proffesionals.
9. There is nothing wrong with summer school.
10. We want to hear what you have to say."
17. "God crackles over the intercom and tells Mr. Freeman he's late for a faculty meeting. Mr. Freeman says the kind of words you don't usually hear from teachers."
18. "It is time for a mental-health day. I nned a day in pajamas, eating ice cream from the carton, painting my toenails, and enjoying TrashTV. You have to plan ahead for a mental-health day. I learned this from a conversation my mom had with her friend Kim. Mom always starts acting sick 48 hours ahead of time. She and Kim take mental-health days together. They buy shoes and go to the movies. Cutting-edge adult delinquency. What is the world coming to?"
19. "The hardware store. Seven acres of unshaven men and bright-eyed women in search of the perfect screwdriver, weed killer, volcanic gas grills. Noise. Lights. Kids running down the aisle with hatchets and axes and saw blades. People fighting about the right color to paint the bathroom. No thank you."
20. "I serve first, a nice shot with a little speed on it. Nicole hits it right back to me with a great backhand. We volley a bit back and forth. Then Ms. Conners blows her whistle to stop and explain the retarded scoring system in tennis where the numbers don't make sense and love doesn't count for anything."
21. "The appearance of the yearbook clears up another high school mystery- why all the popular girls put up with the disgusting habits of Todd Ryder. He is a pig. Greasy, sleazy, foul-mouthed, and unwashed, he'll make a great addition to a state college fraternity. But the popular kids kissed up to him all year. Why? Todd Ryder is the yearbook photographer. Flip through the pages and see who is in his favor. Be nice to Todd and he'll take pictures of you that should have a modeling agency calling your house any day now. Snub Todd and you'll look like a trailer-park refugee having a bad hair day. If I ran high school, I would include stuff like this in the first-day indoctrination. I hadn't understood the Power of Todd. He snapped one picture of me, walking away from the camera wearing my dumpy winter coat, my shoulders around my ears. I will not be buying a yearbook."
22. "By Monday morning, the prom is legend. The drama! The tears! The passion! Why hasn't anyone made a television show out of this yet? The total damage included one stomach pumped, three breakups of long-term relationships, one lost diamond earring, four outrageous hotel-room parties, and five matching tattoos allegedly decorating the behinds of the senior class officers. The guidance counselors are celebrating the lack of fatal accidents."
 Going Nowhere Faster · Sat Jun 16, 2007 @ 10:53pm · 1 Comments |
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