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.

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.

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.

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

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

What you say is what matters.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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