Jacqueline Woodson Quotes

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

In all your getting, get understanding.

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 not - just not being a part of the world and being in it and trying to change it.

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

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.

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.

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.

What you say is what matters.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

We live inside our parents' backstory.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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