Jacqueline Woodson
Young people are often ignored and disregarded, but they are acute observers and learners of everything we say and do.
I always say I write because I have questions, not because I have answers. It's true that you begin the conversation - that's the role of the artist. But it's not my job to tell us what to do next. I wish I had those tools.
What I write comes from a place of deep love, and a deep understanding of all kinds of otherness.
People who are living in economic struggle are more than their circumstances. They're majestic and creative and beautiful.
I'm usually working on several things at once. If I get bored with one, I can go on to another. That way, I never get stuck.
My sister taught me how to write my name when I was about three. I remember writing my whole name: Jacqueline Amanda Woodson. I just loved the power of that, of being able to put a letter on the page and that letter meaning something.
Every time you revisit a book, you get something else out of it.
My grandparents were wealthy; my mom was not. I would walk into these worlds of privilege and then walk back into this other world. My little brother is biracial. So race and economic class and sexuality - these were always issues that were a part of my life.
The writing that I have found to be most false is the writing that doesn't offer hope.
There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.Collection: Dream
People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do...Don't worry about other people. Worry about you.Collection: People
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.Collection: Block
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.Collection: Reading
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.Collection: Teacher
I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Jobs
In all your getting, get understanding.Collection: Understanding
Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Nice
I always say I write because I have lots of questions, not because I have any answers.Collection: Writing
What you say is what matters.Collection: What Matters
No matter how big you get, it's still okay to cry because everybody's got a right to their own tears.Collection: Tears
Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.Collection: Pain
I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.Collection: Flower
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.Collection: Writing
There's me in every character I put on the pages.Collection: Character
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 livingCollection: Trying
I've learned about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.Collection: I've Learned
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: The End Of The Day
The Bible is big in the religion, treating people as you want to be treated.Collection: People
Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.Collection: Fifteen
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?Collection: Mom
You're a part of me...You're in my heart. Forever and always, all right? —DCollection: Heart
I think I'd rather have my heart broke than do the breaking. —LenaCollection: Heart
If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them." —StaggerleeCollection: World
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. —MargaretCollection: Summer
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?Collection: Thinking
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?Collection: Wall
When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.Collection: Writing
Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.Collection: People
That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Writing
I love slow readers. And readers who think about what I've written, think about how it's written - and copy me!Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Voice