327 Quotes by Jacqueline Woodson

When you have so much real drama in your life, it’s hard to think about fiction.

Maybe this was the moment when I knew I was part of a long line of almost erased stories. A child of denial. Of magical thinking.

I was eleven, the idea of two identical digits in my age still new and spectacular and heartbreaking. The girls must have felt this. They must have known. Where had ten, nine, eight, and seven gone?

The first time I write my full name Jacqueline Amanda Woodsonwithout anybody' helpon a clean white page in my composition notebook, I knowIf I wanted toI could write anythingLetters becoming words, words gathering meaning, becomingthoughts outside my headbecoming sentenceswritten by Jacqueline Amanda Woodson

Who hasn't walked through a life of small tragedies?

In all your getting, get understanding.

She said she'd chosen Santa Cruz because when se walked around the campus, she blended somehow, no one asking if she was part Negro, no one accusing her of passing for white.

It's easier to make up storiesthan it is to write them down. When I speak, the words come pouring out of me. The storywakes up and walks all over the room. Sits in a chair, crosses one leg over the other, says, Let me introduce myself. Then just starts going on and on.

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