327 Quotes by Jacqueline Woodson

At night, every living thing competes for a chance to be heard. The crickets and frogs call out. Sometimes, there’s the soft who-whoo of an owl lost amid the pines. Even the dogs won’t rest until they’ve howled at the moon. But the crickets always win, long after the frogs stop croaking and the owl has found its way home. Long after the dogs have lain down losing the battle against sleep, the crickets keep going as though they know their song is our lullaby.

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.

Ms. Johnson says each day holds its own memory – its own moments that we can write about later. She says we should always look for the moments and some of them might be perfect, filled with light and hope and laughter. Moments that stay with us forever and ever.

She felt red at the bone – like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding.

In downtown Greenville, they painted over the WHITE ONLY signs, except on the bathroom doors, they didn’t use a lot of paint so you can still see the words, right there like a ghost standing in front still keeping you out.

This is the way brown people have to fight, my grandfather says. You can’t just put your fist up. You have to insist on something gently. Walk toward a thing slowly. But be ready to die, my grandfather says, for what is right. Be ready to die, my grandfather says, for everything you believe in.

Maybe this is how it happened first for everyone – adults promising us their own failed futures.

In your life, if you’re lucky enough, you are born during a moment in time when the world is ready for the change you’re bringing.

Look how beautifully black we are. And as we dance, I am not Melody who is sixteen, I am not my parents’ once illegitimate daughter – I am a narrative, someone’s almost forgotten story. Remembered.