Writing Quotes by Jacqueline Woodson

I write for whoever needs to read it.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.

— Jacqueline Woodson

That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear.

— Jacqueline Woodson

When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.

— Jacqueline Woodson

Yes, writing is not easy. But can any writer imagine NOT writing?

— Jacqueline Woodson

When I write, I don't think about messages for my readers.

— Jacqueline Woodson

The writing that I have found to be most false is the writing that doesn't offer hope.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I love playing with form. I love playing with sounds... I love music, and I love writing that has a musicality to…

— Jacqueline Woodson

My writing is inspired by where I come from, where I am today, and where I hope to go some day.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I can't write about nice, easy topics because that won't change the world. And I do want to change the world -…

— Jacqueline Woodson

I'm inspired by questions I have that I try to figure out the answers to through my writing.

— Jacqueline Woodson

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

— Jacqueline Woodson

In writing 'Another Brooklyn,' I had to imagine what happens when friendships dissolve.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I feel like I am walking in some amazing footsteps of writers who have come before me, like S.E. Hinton, Walter Dean…

— Jacqueline Woodson

A lot of times, when people send me books to read - new writers mostly - I find that the book is…

— Jacqueline Woodson

For me as a writer, it was understanding that we're so far behind in our way of dealing with death. We put…

— Jacqueline Woodson

Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself -…

— Jacqueline Woodson

With my writing, I try to do stuff I have not done before. Each time I sit down, I want to have…

— Jacqueline Woodson

When I was a kid, I got in trouble for lying a lot, and I had a teacher say, 'Instead of lying,…

— Jacqueline Woodson

In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put…

— Jacqueline Woodson

The epistolary form is one of the hardest to write. It's so hard to show something that's bigger in a letter. Plus,…

— Jacqueline Woodson

Who are you without your girls? I truly believe that. Who are you without the people who help you make sense of…

— Jacqueline Woodson

“You're writing, you're coasting, and you're thinking, 'This is the best thing I've ever written, and it's coming so easily, and these…

— Jacqueline Woodson

What I write comes from a place of deep love, and a deep understanding of all kinds of otherness.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I read a lot of the books that I love again and again and again and try to understand how the writer…

— Jacqueline Woodson

Each book I write is a shout into the silence and a prayer and a plea for change.

— Jacqueline Woodson

In the family, writing wasn't anything anyone understood - being a writer in the real world? How could it be? We didn't…

— Jacqueline Woodson

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

— Jacqueline Woodson

I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorted out.

— Jacqueline Woodson

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

— Jacqueline Woodson

Everything I write, I read out loud. It has to sound a certain way. It has to look a certain way on…

— Jacqueline Woodson

I always say I write because I have lots of questions, not because I have any answers.

— Jacqueline Woodson

Everything I write, I read aloud. It has to sound a certain way and look a certain way on page.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I love the physical act of writing as well as how I grow which each situation I put on the page.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I've wanted to be a writer since I was seven, but I didn't grow up in family where people aspired to live…

— Jacqueline Woodson

I always say I write because I have questions, not because I have answers. It's true that you begin the conversation -…

— Jacqueline Woodson

I think that happens for a lot of people, they have this idea that there's only one type of way to write…

— Jacqueline Woodson

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel…

— Jacqueline Woodson