327 Quotes by Jacqueline Woodson

. . . Love changes and changes. Then it changes again. . .

You the first in your tribe to go to college? Iris shook her head. It was a question about class. She knew that now. It was the what-are-you question. The where and what and who do you come from.

But once, a cardinal alighted on the kitchen windowsill and he found himself squinting long after it had flown away again, trying hard to hold on to its beauty.

But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.

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.

Each person dyingfloats aside. Making room forthe one that's coming. Perhaps they meet ontheir journey. Perhaps they waveas each heads on home

This is what kindness does, Ms.Albert said. Each little thing we do goes out, like a ripple, into the world.

Who hasn't walked through a life of small tragedies? 'Sister Sonja often asked me, as though to understand the depth and breadth of human suffering would be enough to pull me outside of my own.

When we had finally become friends, when the four of us trusted each other enough to let the world surrounding us into our words, we whispered secrets. Pressed side by side by side, or sitting crossed legged in our newly tight circle. We opened our mouths and let the stories that had burned nearly to ash in our bellies finally live outside of us.