Quotes by Jacqueline Woodson

“I think its important that everyday we think about the work we need to do to make this world a better place. I mean, we should wake up thinking about it and go to bed thinking about tomorrows tasks. Theres an awful lot of change needing to be made around here.”

“Before Grandma died, she talked about family history in a way she had never done before, ... She was interested in family history, especially African American women.”

“I didnt know about them, and finding out was like pulling teeth.”

“People who dont know what its like to be an African American dont understand that its OK, ... I never want to be other than an African American.”

When there are many worldsyou can choose the oneyou walk into each day.

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

Youre writing, youre coasting, and youre thinking, This is the best thing Ive ever written, and its coming so easily, and these characters are so great. You put it aside for whatever reason, and you open it up a week later and the characters have turned to cardboard and the book has completely fallen apart, she says. Thats the moment of truth for every writer: Can I go on from here and make this book into something? I think it separates the writers from the nonwriters. And I think its the reason a lot of people have that unfinished manuscript around the house, that albatross.

My mother has a gap betweenher two front teeth. So does Daddy Gunnar.Each child in this family has the same spaceconnecting us.

Yall know how much I love you? Infinity and back again, I say the way Ive said it a million times. And then, daddy says to me, go on and add a little bit more to that.

Who hasnt walked through a life of small tragedies? Sister Sonja often asked me, as though to understand the depth and breadth of human suffering would be enough to pull me outside of my own.

Who hasnt walked through a life of small tragedies?

I know now that what is tragic isn’t the moment. It is the memory.

This is what kindness does, Ms.Albert said. Each little thing we do goes out, like a ripple, into the world.

Maybe this is how it happened first for everyone —adults promising us their own failed future.

Do you remember? Someones always asking andsomeone else, always does

Its easier to make up storiesthan it is to write them down. When I speak, the words come pouring out of me. The storywakes up and walks all over the room. Sits in a chair, crosses one leg over the other, says, Let me introduce myself. Then just starts going on and on.

I was eleven, the idea of two identical digits in my age still new and spectacular and heartbreaking. The girls must have felt this. They must have known. Where had ten, nine, eight, and seven gone?

Nothing in the world is like this-a bright white page withpale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencilthe soft hush of itmoving finallyone dayinto letters.

Creating a novel means moving into the past, the hoped for, the imagined. It is an emotional journey, fraught at times with characters who dont always do or say what a writer wishes.

I knew I was lost inside the world, watching it and trying to understand why too often I felt like I was standing just beyond the frame—of everything.