Jacqueline Woodson Quotes

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.

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

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?

Keep on doing what you're doing.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

In all your getting, get 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.

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 about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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