Jason Reynolds > Quotes

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“You can't run away from who you are, but what you can do is run toward who you want to be.”
― Jason Reynolds, Ghost

“ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES

They weren't meant to be broken.
They were meant for the broken

to follow.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Had our hearts really become so numb that we needed dead bodies in order to feel the beat of compassion in our chests? Who am I if I need to be shocked back into my best self?”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“People always love people more when they're dead.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“but if blood inside you is on the inside of someone else,

you never want to see it on the outside of them”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Dreams don't have timelines, deadlines, and aren't always in straight lines.”
― Jason Reynolds, For Every One

“Because racism was alive and real as shit. It was everywhere and all mixed up in everything, and the only people who said it wasn’t, and the only people who said, “Don’t talk about it” were white. Well, stop lying. That’s what I wanted to tell those people. Stop lying. Stop denying. That’s why I was marching. Nothing was going to change unless we did something about it. We! White people!”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“History can only teach its lesson if it is remembered.”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“AND YOU KNOW
it's weird to know
a person you don't know

and at the same time

not know
a person you know,

you know?”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“MY MOTHER USED TO SAY,

I know you're young,
gotta get it out,
but just remember, when
you're walking in the nighttime,
make sure the nighttime
ain't walking into you.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Trouble is, you can't run away from yourself." Coach snatched the towel from his shoulder, folded into a perfect square, and set it in the space between us. "Unfortunately," he said, "ain't nobody that fast.”
― Jason Reynolds, Ghost

“When bad things happen
we can usually look up and see
the moon, big and bright,
shining over us.

That always made me feel better.

Like there's something up there
beaming down on us in the dark.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Little. Don't ever let someone call your life, your dreams, little. Hear me?”
― Jason Reynolds, Ghost

“I SWEAR SOMETIMES

it feels like God be flashing photos of his children, awkward, amazing, tucked in his wallet for the world to see. But the world don't wanna see no kids, and God ain't no pushy parent so he just folds and snaps us shut.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Sometimes, when people get treated as less than human, the best way to help them feel better is to simply treat them as human. Not as victims. Just you as you. Rashad Butler, before all this.”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“We can't attack a thing we don't know. That's dangerous. And...foolish. It would be like trying to chop down a tree from the top of it. If we understand how the tree works, how the trunk and roots are where the power lies, and how gravity is on our side, we can attack it, each of us with small axes, and change the face of the the forest.”
― Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

“Your dream is the mole
behind your ear,
that chip in your
front tooth,
your freckles.
It's the thing that makes
you special,
but not the thing that makes
you great.
The courage in trying,
the passion in living,
and the acknowledgement
and appreciation of
the beauty happening around
you does that.”
― Jason Reynolds, For Every One

“I wanted him to know that I saw him, a guy who, even with a tear-streaked face, seemed to have two tiny smiles framing his eyes like parentheses, a guy on the ground pantomiming his death to remind the world he was alive.”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“In 2012, in the United Kingdom, the number of people (regardless of race) shot and killed by police officers: 1 In 2013, in the United Kingdom, the number of times police officers fired guns in the line of duty/the number of people fatally shot: 3/0 In the United States, in the seven year period ending in 2012, a white police officer killed a black person nearly two times a week. “I’m not much of a talker,” she finished up. “You know that. But I know numbers. The numbers don’t lie, kids. The numbers always tell a story.”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“ALIVE = A VEIL”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Nobody says the words anymore, but somehow the violence still remains. If I didn’t want the violence to remain, I had to do a hell of a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things.”
― Jason Reynolds, All American Boys

“ANAGRAM

is when you take a word and rearrange the letters to make another word. And sometimes the words are still somehow connected ex: CANOE = OCEAN. Same letters, different words, somehow still make sense together, like brothers.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Buck laughed, and

laughter,

when it's loud
and heavy
and aimed
at you,

I think
can feel just
as bad as
a bullet's

bang."
-Will”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“Shawn turned back toward me, eyes dull from death but shining from tears, finally spoke to me. Just two words, like a joke he'd been saving. YOU COMING?”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“...death isn't bad. It's not. It's just that life is so good. So damn good that you just wanna hold on to it, and everybody in it. But we can't. But what we can do, is appreciate it more. Y'know, smell the flowers.”
― Jason Reynolds, The Boy in the Black Suit

“The most addictive drug known to America. Racism. It causes wealth, an inflated sense of self, and hallucinations.”
― Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

“I FELT LIKE CRYING

which felt like
another person
trapped behind my face

tiny fists punching
the backs of my eyes
feet kicking
my throat at the spot
where the swallow
starts.

Stay put, I whispered to him,
Stay strong, I whispered to me.

Because crying
is against

The Rules.”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down

“There will come a time when we will love humanity, when we will gain the courage to fight for an equitable society for our beloved humanity, knowing, intelligently, that when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves.”
― Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

“How do you small-talk your father when "dad" is a language so foreign that whenever you try to say it, it feels like you got a third lip and a second tongue?”
― Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down