I'm always wondering if he'll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn't. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn't solid the way death is. It's fluid, like language. And it hurts so much...so, so much. Jacqueline Woodson More Quotes by Jacqueline Woodson More Quotes From Jacqueline Woodson I don't know how women stop being friends with other women. Jacqueline Woodson know-how knows I have met women who don't have close women friends, and I've always been like, "How could that possibly be?" Jacqueline Woodson mets We live inside our parents' backstory. Jacqueline Woodson parent I always say I write because I have lots of questions, not because I have any answers. Jacqueline Woodson answers writing When you think of how a child experiences a series of events, it feels, for so long, like she's looking at everything from behind this glass and it's obscured. Jacqueline Woodson glasses children thinking Even with all of its changing, Brooklyn's architecture still feels like home, the language feels like home. It's changing so quickly that it's surprising. It's surprising still, when someone looks kind of askance to see me walking towards them. Jacqueline Woodson brooklyn home looks I think I had gotten messages really young that poetry wasn't for me, that it was for, basically, some dead white men. My experience and my intellect was on the outside of understanding that. I think that's what's so destructive. Jacqueline Woodson white-man men thinking That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear. Jacqueline Woodson writing past moving I'm still afraid. I'm still afraid every day. Jacqueline Woodson stills I love slow readers. And readers who think about what I've written, think about how it's written - and copy me! Jacqueline Woodson copies reader thinking I actually don't think of whiteness and heterosexuality as 'the norm'. Maybe there are people who still do but none of them are close friends of mine. Jacqueline Woodson heterosexuality people thinking I think people need to remember that a book isn't done after a few rewrites and a publisher isn't going to buy an 'undone' book so the hard part is making it a book that at least ten other people want to pay for to read. Jacqueline Woodson book people thinking A lot of times, when people send me books to read - new writers mostly - I find that the book is still in a draft stage and that before it can leave the writer's hands and head to a publisher, it needs about five more revisions. Some people don't want to do that. Jacqueline Woodson book hands people I rewrite my books until they're mostly memorized so that's a lot of rewrites, a lot of time spent with my stories. Jacqueline Woodson time-spent stories book I think people are sometime reluctant to read outside of their own race. This is heartbreaking. Jacqueline Woodson race people thinking I think boys don't always like to read books with female protagonist - I don't even know what to say about this. Jacqueline Woodson boys book thinking Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself - If they're interesting to me, my hope is that they'll be interesting to others as well. Jacqueline Woodson writing character thinking Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling. Jacqueline Woodson writing book thinking There's me in every character I put on the pages. Jacqueline Woodson pages character I think that happens for a lot of people, they have this idea that there's only one type of way to write poetry and that you have to have this information. You have to know about meter, you have to know about form, you have to know about iambic pentameter, and all of that. Jacqueline Woodson writing ideas thinking
