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

Jacqueline Woodson

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Jacqueline Woodson
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: February 12
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Columbus
Ohio
Pretty
Hope
Without
Think
Thinking
Optimistic
Became
Writer

More quotes by Jacqueline Woodson

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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
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When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.
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Yes, writing is not easy. But can any writer imagine NOT writing?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There's me in every character I put on the pages.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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.
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No matter how big you get, it's still okay to cry because everybody's got a right to their own tears.
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I think I had gotten messages really young that poetry wasn't for me, that it was for, basically, some dead white men. My experience and my intellect was on the outside of understanding that. I think that's what's so destructive.
Jacqueline Woodson
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If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them. —Staggerlee
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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
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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.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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
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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
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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
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But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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.
Jacqueline Woodson