Quotes from Jacqueline Woodson

I have a short attention span, so when one book isn't working out, I just work on another.

Memory doesn't come as a straight narrative. It comes in small moments with all this white space.

Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen.

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

I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now .

Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits beside us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on.

You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.

When there are many worlds you can choose the one you walk into each day.

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.

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.

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.

I know now that what is tragic isn't the moment. It is the memory.

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

Sometimes, I don't know that words for things, how to write down the feeling of knowing that every dying person leaves something behind.

In all your getting, get understanding.

People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do...Don't worry about other people. Worry about you.

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 . . .

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.

Somewhere in my brain each laugh, tear and lullaby becomes memory .

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.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them then blow gently, watch them float right out of my hands.