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Jacqueline Woodson Quotes:

Jacqueline Woodson quotes

Ocupation: Writer

Life: b. February 12, 1963

Birthday: February 12

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There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.

Topics: Dream, People, Library

quote diversity is about all of us and about us having to figure out how to walk through this jacqueline woodson Quotes

I definitely believe in a greater good. I definitely believe that there's a reason each of us is here and that we've been brought here to do something. And we need to get busy doing it. And I definitely believe that there is something moving us forward that's good.

Topics: Believe, Moving, Needs, Greater Good

I do believe that books can change lives and give people this kind of language they wouldn't have had otherwise,

source: - "Jacqueline Woodson On Being A 'Brown Girl' Who Dreams". "Morning Edition", www.npr.org. September 18, 2014.

Topics: Life Changing, Believe, Book

From a really young age, I was reading like a writer. I was reading for the deep understanding of the literature; not simply to hear the story but to understand how the author got the story on the page.

source: - FaceBook post by Rose McGowan from Jun 09, 2012

Topics: Reading, Understanding, Age, Deep Understanding

Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2009). “Peace, Locomotion”, p.82, Penguin

Topics: Nice, Laughing, Becoming

I feel like I'm a New Yorker to the bone. But there is a lot of the South in me. I know there is a lot of the South in my mannerisms. There's a lot of the South in my expectations of other people and how people treat each other. There's a lot of the South in the way I speak, but it could never be home.

Topics: Home, People, Expectations, Mannerisms, New Yorkers

You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.

Topics: People, Pushing, Someday

I'm not afraid of silence. You know, I'm not afraid to sit in a room and have the conversation drop into silence. I think that's a very southern thing.

Topics: Thinking, Silence, Southern

I think in terms of being a New Yorker, as my friends would say, I don't take a lot of mess. I have no tolerance for people who are not thinking deeply about things. I have no tolerance for the kind of small talk that people need to fill silence. And I have no tolerance for people just not being a part of the world and being in it and trying to change it.

source: - "Jacqueline Woodson On Growing Up, Coming Out And Saying Hi To Strangers". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. June 19, 2015.

Topics: Thinking, People, Silence, Small Talk, Trying To Change

The Bible is big in the religion, treating people as you want to be treated.

Topics: People, Want, Bigs

I remember my mother would get upset with me 'cause she said I walked like my dad. But I think it was more like, there's something about you that's not quite ladylike and femme. And then when I got older - once I came out, my mom and grandma were horrified and just kind of like, where did we go wrong?

Topics: Mom, Mother, Dad, Ladylike, Femme

Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.

Topics: Diversity, Together, World

But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2014). “Brown Girl Dreaming”, p.215, Penguin

Topics: Butterfly, Forever, Paper

I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.

Topics: Optimistic, Thinking, Without Hope

People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do...Don't worry about other people. Worry about you.

Topics: People, Worry, Judging

The empty swing set reminds us of this-- that bad won't be bad forever, and what is good can sometimes last a long, long time.

Topics: Swings, Long, Forever, Swing Sets

You're a part of me...You're in my heart. Forever and always, all right? —D

Topics: Heart, Forever, My Heart

Nothing in the world is like this- a bright white page with pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil the soft hush of it moving finally one day into letters.

Topics: Moving, Blue, White

Sometimes, I don't know that words for things, how to write down the feeling of knowing that every dying person leaves something behind.

Topics: Writing, Knowing, Feelings

You have those walls up all around you...Come a day you gonna want to tear them down brick by brick and gonna find that the cement is all hard. What you gonna do then?

Topics: Wall, Tears, Want, Walls Up

Lately, I'd been feeling like I was standing outside watching everything and everybody. Wishing I could take the part of me that was over there and the part of me that was over here and push them together—make myself into one whole person like everybody else.

Topics: Feelings, Wish, Together, Whole Person

I feel like the world stopped. And I got off...and then it started spinning again, but too fast for me to hop back on. I feel like I'm still trying to get a...to get some kind of foothold on living

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2006). “Behind You”, p.42, Penguin

Topics: Trying, World, Spinning

That's what makes best friends. It's not whether or not you live on the same block or go to the same school, but how you feel about each other in your hearts.

Topics: Block, Heart, School

If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them." —Staggerlee

Topics: World, Enough

I'm always wondering if he'll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn't. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn't solid the way death is. It's fluid, like language. And it hurts so much...so, so much.

Topics: Hurt, Stars, Fall, Hurt So Much

Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2014). “Brown Girl Dreaming”, p.241, Penguin

Topics: Silence, Stories, Just Listen

I think I'd rather have my heart broke than do the breaking. —Lena

Topics: Heart, Thinking, Broke

Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

Topics: Thinking, People, Brain, Snobby

Maybe this was our last summer as best friends. I feel like something's going to change now and I'm not going to be able to change it back. —Margaret

Topics: Summer, Able, Lasts, Last Summer

I wouldn't mind the early autumn if you came home today I'd tell you how much I miss you and know I'd be okay. It's funny how we never know exactly how our life will go It's funny how a dream can fade with the break of day. Time can't erase the memory and time can't bring you home Last Summer was a part of me and now a part is gone. —Margaret

Topics: Summer, Dream, Memories, Last Summer

Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.

Topics: People, Trying, Sometimes

No matter how big you get, it's still okay to cry because everybody's got a right to their own tears.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2009). “Peace, Locomotion”, p.19, Penguin

Topics: Tears, Matter, Cry

Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2006). “If You Come Softly”, p.102, Penguin

Topics: Moving, Long, Ready

I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink - it's gone.

Topics: Thinking, Missing, Gone

Sometimes it seems as though not a moment has moved, but then you look up and you're already old or you already have a household of kids or you look down and see your feet are miles and miles away from the rest of you—and you realize you've grown up.

Topics: Kids, Feet, Looks

In all your getting, get understanding.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2006). “Hush”, p.91, Penguin

Topics: Understanding

Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.

Topics: Fifteen, Sixteen

I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2014). “Brown Girl Dreaming”, p.271, Penguin

Topics: Believe, Perfect, One Day, Perfect Moments

I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

Topics: Flower, Writing, Stories

A long time ago, Anne used to talk about energy-how that was all that love was-ions connecting across synapses of time and air. Don't rationalize, she'd say. None of it will ever make sense. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, not wanting to cry. Anne was right. None of it made any sense.

Topics: Life, Wall, Eye, Synapses, Back Against The Wall

Mama says it's okay to be on the quiet side—if quiet means you're listening, watching, taking it all in.

Topics: Mean, Listening, Mama

When I was a kid, I got in trouble for lying a lot, and I had a teacher say, instead of lying, write it down, because if you write it down, it's not a lie anymore; it's fiction.

source: - Source: www.pbs.org

Topics: Teacher, Lying, Writing

I think writers are the history keepers, right? We're the ones who are bearing witness to what's going on in the world. And I feel like it's our job to put that down on paper, and put it out into the world, so that it can be remembered.

source: - Source: www.pbs.org

Topics: Jobs, Thinking, World, Bearing Witness

I always say I write because I have lots of questions, not because I have any answers.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Writing, Answers

What you say is what matters.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: What Matters, Matter

Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2002). “Maizon at Blue Hill”, p.47, Penguin

Topics: Pain, Color, Racism

There's me in every character I put on the pages.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Character, Pages

I think it's important to remember that writing is a gift and our stories are gifts to ourselves and to the world and sometimes giving isn't always the easiest thing to do but it comes back.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Giving

I've learned about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: I've Learned, Prose, Marrying

We do inherently know that poetry is about the way we speak. It's about where we pause, where we drop our words in the middle of a sentence. It's about the rhythm and the cadence of the way we speak. It's about putting that down at the end of the day.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: The End Of The Day, Our Words, Cadence

When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Writing, Character, Thinking

Keep on doing what you're doing.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Don't trust women, my mother said to me. Even the ugly ones will take what you thought was yours.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Mother, Ugly, Said

That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Moving, Writing, Past

I think that happens for a lot of people, they have this idea that there's only one type of way to write poetry and that you have to have this information. You have to know about meter, you have to know about form, you have to know about iambic pentameter, and all of that.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Ideas

I love slow readers. And readers who think about what I've written, think about how it's written - and copy me!

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Thinking, Reader, Copies

I think people need to remember that a book isn't done after a few rewrites and a publisher isn't going to buy an 'undone' book so the hard part is making it a book that at least ten other people want to pay for to read.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Book, Thinking, People

A lot of times, when people send me books to read - new writers mostly - I find that the book is still in a draft stage and that before it can leave the writer's hands and head to a publisher, it needs about five more revisions. Some people don't want to do that.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Book, Hands, People

I feel like so much of what I'm doing is making a road where there is no road and inviting people on that road with me. It's scary. It's scary, but I can't listen to the voices that are saying form is the only way, or that there is only this kind of form or that kind of form.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Voice, People, Scary, Inviting

For me as a writer, it was understanding that we're so far behind in our way of dealing with death. We put someone in the ground, we bury them or we burn them, and then we're supposed to just move on and kind of get over it.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Moving, Understanding, Way, Dealing With Death, Just Move On

I actually don't think of whiteness and heterosexuality as 'the norm'. Maybe there are people who still do but none of them are close friends of mine.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Thinking, People, Heterosexuality, Whiteness

I rewrite my books until they're mostly memorized so that's a lot of rewrites, a lot of time spent with my stories.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Book, Stories, Time Spent

Everything I write, I read out loud. It has to sound a certain way. It has to look a certain way on the page.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Writing, Sound, Looks

There is so much work left to be done in the world and for me, I am hoping to make the change I can and do the work I need to do through this gift I've been given.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Needs, Done, World

Seems like every time life starts straightening itself out, something's gotta go and happen.

source: - Jacqueline Woodson (2009). “Peace, Locomotion”, p.50, Penguin

Topics: Happens, Seems

I have met women who don't have close women friends, and I've always been like, "How could that possibly be?"

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Mets

I don't know how women stop being friends with other women.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Know How, Knows

I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: I've Learned

Where I grew up, it was all people who were black and Latino, people who look like me. Now I live in a neighborhood where very, very few people look like me.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: People, Black, Looks

Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself - If they're interesting to me, my hope is that they'll be interesting to others as well.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Writing, Character, Thinking

I think boys don't always like to read books with female protagonist - I don't even know what to say about this.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Book, Boys, Thinking, Female Protagonists

One place exists as their interpretation of it. For the people living and thriving inside of it, it's another place.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: People, Interpretation

Yes, writing is not easy. But can any writer imagine NOT writing?

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Writing, Imagine, Easy

My favorite reader is one that revisits books and gets something new out of them each time.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Book, My Favorite, Something New

I think people are sometime reluctant to read outside of their own race. This is heartbreaking.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Thinking, Race, People

Even with all of its changing, Brooklyn's architecture still feels like home, the language feels like home. It's changing so quickly that it's surprising. It's surprising still, when someone looks kind of askance to see me walking towards them.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Home, Looks, Brooklyn

When you think of how a child experiences a series of events, it feels, for so long, like she's looking at everything from behind this glass and it's obscured.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Children, Thinking, Glasses

We live inside our parents' backstory.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Parent

I pay a lot of attention to whitespace. I pay a lot of attention to the rhythm of words together.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Together, Attention, Pay

To watch your home change in front of you is surprising. But at the same time, going someplace like Mississippi, makes me appreciate even this.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Home, Appreciate, Watches

I think I had gotten messages really young that poetry wasn't for me, that it was for, basically, some dead white men. My experience and my intellect was on the outside of understanding that. I think that's what's so destructive.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Men, Thinking, White Man

I'm still afraid. I'm still afraid every day.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Stills

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.

source: - Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Topics: Book, Writing, Thinking, Realistic Fiction

As a poet who has the tools for interpreting the poem differently, you can begin to deconstruct it. But the human being who's like, "I know about conversation, I know about language, I know about hard times," will approach the poem differently.

source: - Source: therumpus.net

Topics: Hard Times, Tools, Language, Interpreting

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