Jacqueline Woodson > Quotes

“Even the silence
has a story to tell you.
Just listen. Listen.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“But on paper, things can live forever.
On paper, a butterfly
never dies.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, If You Come Softly

“You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, The Dear One

“When there are many worlds
you can choose the one
you walk into each day.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“Then I let the stories live
inside my head, again and again
until the real world fades back
into cricket lullabies
and my own dreams.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“How can I explain to anyone that stories are like air to me, I breathe them in and let them out over and over again.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“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, Brown Girl Dreaming

“I know now that what is tragic isn’t the moment. It is the memory.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Another Brooklyn

“Sometimes, I don't know that words for things,
how to write down the feeling of knowing
that every dying person leaves something behind.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“I wouldn't mind the early autumn
if you came home today
I'd tell you how much I miss you
and know I'd be okay.

It's funny how we never know
exactly how our life will go
It's funny how a dream can fade
with the break of day.

Time can't erase the memory
and time can't bring you home
Last Summer was a part of me
and now a part is gone.

—Margaret”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Last Summer with Maizon

“In all your getting, get understanding.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Hush

“I do not know if these hands will become Malcolm’s—raised and fisted or Martin’s—open and asking or James’s—curled around a pen. I do not know if these hands will be Rosa’s or Ruby’s gently gloved and fiercely folded calmly in a lap, on a desk, around a book, ready to change the world . . .”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do...Don't worry about other people. Worry about you.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, The Dear One

“Guess that's where the tears came from, knowing that there's so much in this great big world that you don't have a single ounce of control over. Guess the sooner you learn that, the sooner you'll have one less heartbreak in your life.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone

“I lifted my head to look up into the changing leaves, thinking how at some point, we were all headed home. At some point, all of this, everything and everyone, became memory.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Another Brooklyn

“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, If You Come Softly

“Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Between Madison and Palmetto

“Deep winter and the night air is cold. So still,
it feels like the world goes on forever in the darkness
until you look up and the earth stops
in a ceiling of stars. My head against
my grandfather's arm,
a blanket around us as we sit on the front porch swing.
Its whine like a song.

You don't need words
on a night like this. Just the warmth
of your grandfather's arm. Just the silent promise
that the world as we know it
will always be here.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“Somewhere in my brain
each laugh, tear and lullaby
becomes memory.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“Does it sound crazy to say I looked at her and saw the world falling into some kind of order that I didn’t even know it was out of?”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone

“I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them then blow gently, watch them float right out of my hands.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“When we can't find my sister, we know / she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand, / a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her. / We know we can call Odella's name out loud, / slap the table hard with our hands, / dance around it singing 'She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain' / so many times the song makes us sick / and the circling makes us dizzy / and still / my sister will do nothing more / than slowly turn the page.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“He loved October. Had always loved it. There was something sad and beautiful about it - the ending and beginning of things.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, If You Come Softly

“I'm always wondering if he'll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn't. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn't solid the way death is. It's fluid, like language. And it hurts so much...so, so much.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Maizon at Blue Hill

“Some evenings I don't know where the old pains end and the new ones begin. Feels like the older you get the more they run into one long, deep aching.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Red at the Bone

“You're a part of me...You're in my heart. Forever and always, all right?

—D”
― Jacqueline Woodson, After Tupac and D Foster

“I work hard, he says, I treat people like I want to be treated. God sees this, God knows.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“Who hasn't walked through a life of small tragedies?”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Another Brooklyn