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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

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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
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I have met women who don't have close women friends, and I've always been like, How could that possibly be?
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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I don't know how women stop being friends with other women.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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.
Jacqueline Woodson
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I pay a lot of attention to whitespace. I pay a lot of attention to the rhythm of words together.
Jacqueline Woodson
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I've learned about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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
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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
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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
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There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.
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 loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.
Jacqueline Woodson
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There's me in every character I put on the pages.
Jacqueline Woodson
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Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.
Jacqueline Woodson
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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 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
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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
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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
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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