Jacqueline Woodson famous quotes

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

#Dream #People #Library

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Believe #Moving #Needs

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

#Life Changing #Believe #Book

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Reading #Understanding #Age

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Nice #Laughing #Becoming

I feel like I'm a New Yorker to the bone. But there is a lot of the South in me. I know there is a lot of the South in my mannerisms. There's a lot of the South in my expectations of other people and how people treat each other. There's a lot of the South in the way I speak, but it could never be home.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Home #People #Expectations

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

#People #Pushing #Someday

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Thinking #Silence #Southern

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

#Thinking #People #Silence

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

#People #Want #Bigs

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?
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Mom #Mother #Dad

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

#Diversity #Together #World

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

#Butterfly #Forever #Paper

I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Optimistic #Thinking #Without Hope

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

#People #Worry #Judging

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Swings #Long #Forever

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

#Heart #Forever #My Heart

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Moving #Blue #White

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

#Writing #Knowing #Feelings

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?
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Wall #Tears #Want

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Feelings #Wish #Together

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
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Trying #World #Spinning

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Block #Heart #School

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

#World #Enough

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Hurt #Stars #Fall

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

#Silence #Stories #Just Listen

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

#Heart #Thinking #Broke

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?
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Thinking #People #Brain

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
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Summer #Able #Lasts

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
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Summer #Dream #Memories

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

#People #Trying #Sometimes

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

#Tears #Matter #Cry

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

#Moving #Long #Ready

I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink - it's gone.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Thinking #Missing #Gone

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Kids #Feet #Looks

In all your getting, get understanding.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Understanding

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

#Fifteen #Sixteen

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

#Believe #Perfect #One Day

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

#Flower #Writing #Stories

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.
-- Jacqueline Woodson

#Life #Wall #Eye

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

#Mean #Listening #Mama