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David Collins
Laurie’s best friend Amy is a fun and free-spirited teenager with a rebellious streak. Petite and pretty with “Goldilocks hair,” Amy is nonetheless insecure about how she measures up to Laurie, and desperate to emulate her more popular friend. Laurie feels nervous about the occasionally competitive nature of their friendship, and hyperconscious of how Amy’s desire to constantly one-up Laurie keeps them from being truly close. Laurie is surprised when Amy gets swept up in The Wave, and as Amy gets sucked deeper and deeper into the movement, Laurie has trouble connecting with her friend. Eventually, Amy admits to Laurie that the reason she is so supportive of The Wave is because it “means that nobody is better than anyone else”—and admits that her constant feelings of jealousy for Laurie have driven her into the rhetoric of The Wave’s equalizing force. Smart and wily but deeply emotional and impressionable, Amy—one of the students most affected by the screening of the Holocaust documentary in Ben Ross’s class—forgets the dangers of groupthink and gets swept up in the idea of a uniform, conformist society.
Amy Smith Quotes in The Wave
The The Wave quotes below are all either spoken by Amy Smith or refer to Amy Smith. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 14
Quotes
“Why do you want to be part of it?”
“Because it means that nobody is better than anyone else for once,” Amy said. “Because ever since we became friends all I’ve ever done is try to compete with you and keep up with you. But now I don’t feel like I have to have a boyfriend on the football team like you. And if I don’t want to, I don’t have to get the same grades you get, Laurie. For the first time in three years I feel like I don’t have to keep up with Laurie Saunders and people will still like me.”
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Wave LitChart as a printable PDF.
Amy Smith Quotes in The Wave
The The Wave quotes below are all either spoken by Amy Smith or refer to Amy Smith. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 14
Quotes
“Why do you want to be part of it?”
“Because it means that nobody is better than anyone else for once,” Amy said. “Because ever since we became friends all I’ve ever done is try to compete with you and keep up with you. But now I don’t feel like I have to have a boyfriend on the football team like you. And if I don’t want to, I don’t have to get the same grades you get, Laurie. For the first time in three years I feel like I don’t have to keep up with Laurie Saunders and people will still like me.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
