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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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Jacqueline Woodson
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: February 12
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Columbus
Ohio
Needs
Work
Hoping
Much
Gift
Make
Given
World
Left
Change
Need
Done
More quotes by Jacqueline Woodson
I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.
Jacqueline Woodson
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.
Jacqueline Woodson
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
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.
Jacqueline Woodson
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
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.
Jacqueline Woodson
We do inherently know that poetry is about the way we speak. It's about where we pause, where we drop our words in the middle of a sentence. It's about the rhythm and the cadence of the way we speak. It's about putting that down at the end of the day.
Jacqueline Woodson
Everything I write, I read out loud. It has to sound a certain way. It has to look a certain way on the page.
Jacqueline Woodson
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
The Bible is big in the religion, treating people as you want to be treated.
Jacqueline Woodson
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
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.
Jacqueline Woodson
I think people are sometime reluctant to read outside of their own race. This is heartbreaking.
Jacqueline Woodson
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
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
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
When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.
Jacqueline Woodson
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
I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.
Jacqueline Woodson
But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.
Jacqueline Woodson
