Renée Watson > Quotes

“Momma is a song that I can't forget. Her melody comes to mind and I realize that traces of her song are still here.”
― Renée Watson, What Momma Left Me

“Rich people don't do that," he tells me. "Plus, God isn't the one we need to be talking to. We need to talk to the chief of police, the mayor, and the governor. They're the ones with the power to make change.”
― Renée Watson

“What would life be like for you if you saw every single moment, every word, every deed, as a seed? What would your harvest be?”
― Renée Watson

“I am the girl who walks down the hallway, hoping for at least one boy to notice me. But the boys at school don’t like me because I look nothing like their mothers, look nothing like the Dream.”
― Renée Watson

“How come you never wear makeup?

My grandma would have three heart attacks and a stroke if she saw me in makeup.”
― Renée Watson, What Momma Left Me

“Poor people are the ones who pray. People who don't have what they need, who can't pay their rent, who can't buy healthy food, who can't save any of their paycheck because every dollar is already accounted for. Those are the people who pray. They pray for miracles, they pray for signs, they pray for good health.”
― Renée Watson

“Sabrina is always telling us girls that we need to work on making eye contact with people. That people want to know we’re telling the truth and that we’re confident and sure of ourselves. But I feel more confident when I’m looking at the floor or my shoes or far away at the rain clouds.”
― Renée Watson

“What you’re about to learn in this unit applies to more than a math lesson. Understanding angle relationships in math will help you understand your personal, real life relationships,’ Mr. Dixon tells us. ‘Not every person that comes into your life has a parallel experience to yours. We can’t all be mirrors of each other. There are people, like transversal lines, that cross paths with you only for a moment. In that short moment, you connect, have something in common, but still - you have your own unique experience.”
― Renée Watson

“For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers.”
― Renée Watson

“Did he remember existing in a world where no one thought him strange, thought him a beast? Did he remember being human?”
― Renée Watson