137 Quotes by Jason Reynolds

How do you small-talk your father when “dad” is a language so foreign that whenever you try to say it, it feels like you got a third lip and a second tongue?

Weird talking to my dad like he was a stranger even though we hugged like family.

Sometimes, when people get treated as less than human, the best way to help them feel better is to simply treat them as human. Not as victims. Just you as you. Rashad Butler, before all this.

There are lazy, hardworking, wise, unwise, harmless, and harmful individuals of every race, but no racial group is better or worse than another racial group in any way.

You, my dear, should spend more time in a library. It’s not just a hiding place, but also the place where the chases happen.

So I couldn’t help but worry, even when I felt like he didn’t deserve my worry anymore.

Racist ideas cause people to look at an innocent Black face and see a criminal.

Trouble is, you can’t run away from yourself.” Coach snatched the towel from his shoulder, folded into a perfect square, and set it in the space between us. “Unfortunately,” he said, “ain’t nobody that fast.

And sometimes,” he continued while flipping another one, “I can lose and lose and lose and I don’t know why. But there’s nothing I can do but just keep flipping the cards. Eventually, I’ll win again. As long as you got cards to keep turning, you’re fine. Now, that’s life,” he said, pushing another hand I won over to me.