J Woodson Quotes

#1. It seemed like someone was always leaving someone, like that's the way the world worked - people were born and people died, people left and people came. It was like the world was saying you can't have everything you want at the same time.

Jacqueline Woodson

#2. The Hocking River moves like a flowing arm away from the Ohio River runs through towns as though it's chasing its own freedom, the same way the Ohio runs north from Virginia until it's safely away from the South.

Jacqueline Woodson

#3. We knew Down South. Everyone had one. Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.

Jacqueline Woodson

#4. We have a wonderful history behind us ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'.

Carter G. Woodson

#5. It may be well to repeat here the saying that old men talk of what they have done, young men of what they are doing, and fools of what they expect to do. The Negro race has a rather large share of the last mentioned class.

Carter G. Woodson

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

Jacqueline Woodson

#7. History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.

Carter G. Woodson

#8. Our aim is to appeal to reason. ... Prayer is not one of our remedies; it depends on what one is praying for. We consider prayer nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is.

Carter G. Woodson

#9. I feel like the world stopped. And I got off ... and then it started spinning again, but too fast for me to hop back on. I feel like I'm still trying to get a ... to get some kind of foothold on living

Jacqueline Woodson

#10. The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies.

Carter G. Woodson

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

Jacqueline Woodson

#12. The author takes the position that the consumer pays the tax, and as such every individual of the social order should be given unlimited opportunity to make the most of himself.

Carter G. Woodson

#13. 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.

Jacqueline Woodson

#14. Even when my girls were little, we'd go down there, my grandmother tells us. And people'd be marching. The marching didn't just start yesterday. Police with those dogs, scared everybody near to death. Just once I let my girls march.

Jacqueline Woodson

#15. So this is what he believes in
your hands in the cool dirt
until the earth gives back to you
all that you've asked of it.

Jacqueline Woodson

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

Jacqueline Woodson

#17. I couldn't be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because I'm pretty optimistic.

Jacqueline Woodson

#18. There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.

Jacqueline Woodson

#19. Stories can be windows, but also mirrors.

Jacqueline Woodson

#20. The only question which concerns us here is whether these "educated" persons are actually equipped to face the ordeal before them or unconsciously contribute to their own undoing by perpetuating the regime of the oppressor.

Carter G. Woodson

#21. I watched my brother watch the world, his sharp, too-serious brow furrowing down in both angst and wonder. Everywhere we looked, we saw the people trying to dream themselves out. As though there was someplace other than this place. As though there was another Brooklyn.

Jacqueline Woodson

#22. we looked, we saw the people trying to dream themselves out. As though there was someplace other than this place. As though there was another Brooklyn. August,

Jacqueline Woodson

#23. Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

Jacqueline Woodson

#24. In our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give the majority what they want rather than educate them to understand what is best for them.

Carter G. Woodson

#25. And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.

Carter G. Woodson

#26. No people can go forward when the majority of those who should know better have chosen to go backward, but this is exactly what most of our misleaders do.

Carter G. Woodson

#27. My sister's clear soft voice opens up the world to me. I lean in so hungry for it.

Jacqueline Woodson

#28. No one stops to think, though - that maybe there is a reason for the darkness. Maybe people have to be reminded of it - of its power. At night, we go to sleep against the darkness. And if we wake up before morning, a lot of times we're afraid. We need it all though - the darkness and the light.

Jacqueline Woodson

#29. The Bible is big in the religion, treating people as you want to be treated.

Jacqueline Woodson

#30. From a really young age, I was reading like a writer. I was reading for the deep understanding of the literature; not simply to hear the story but to understand how the author got the story on the page.

Jacqueline Woodson