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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

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Jacqueline Woodson
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: February 12
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Columbus
Ohio
Stills
Norm
Still
Mines
Think
Mine
Thinking
None
People
Close
Maybe
Friends
Heterosexuality
Actually
Whiteness

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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.
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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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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?
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Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.
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The Bible is big in the religion, treating people as you want to be treated.
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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.
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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.
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I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.
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I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.
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But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.
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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.
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Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.
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Yes, writing is not easy. But can any writer imagine NOT writing?
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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.
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In all your getting, get understanding.
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I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.
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