Quotes from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Even the silence
has a story to tell you.
Just listen. Listen.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“When there are many worlds
you can choose the one
you walk into each day.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“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.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“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, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“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.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Somewhere in my brain
each laugh, tear and lullaby
becomes memory.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Sometimes, I don't know that words for things,
how to write down the feeling of knowing
that every dying person leaves something behind.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“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 . . .”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“When we can't find my sister, we know / she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand, / a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her. / We know we can call Odella's name out loud, / slap the table hard with our hands, / dance around it singing 'She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain' / so many times the song makes us sick / and the circling makes us dizzy / and still / my sister will do nothing more / than slowly turn the page.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“I work hard, he says, I treat people like I want to be treated. God sees this, God knows.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“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.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them then blow gently, watch them float right out of my hands.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“We all have the same dream, my grandmother says. To live equal in a country that’s supposed to be the land of the free. She lets out a long breath, deep remembering.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“I am not my sister.
Words from the books curl around each other
make little sense
until
I read them again
and again, the story
settling into memory. Too slow my teacher says.
Read Faster.
Too babyish, the teacher says.
Read older.
But I don't want to read faster or older or
any way else that might
make the story disappear too quickly from where
it's settling
inside my brain,
slowly becoming a part of me.
A story I will remember
long after I've read it for the second, third,
tenth, hundredth time.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Y'all know how much I love you? "Infinity and back again," I say the way I've said it a million times. And then, daddy says to me, "go on and add a little bit more to that.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Will the words end, I ask
whenever I remember to.
Nope, my sister says, all of five years old now,
and promising me

infinity.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“My birth certificate says: Female Negro Mother: Mary Anne Irby, 22, Negro Father: Jack Austin Woodson, 25, Negro In Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. is planning a march on Washington, where John F. Kennedy is president. In Harlem, Malcolm X is standing on a soapbox talking about a revolution. Outside the window of University Hospital, snow is slowly falling. So much already covers this vast Ohio ground. In Montgomery, only seven years have passed since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus. I am born brown-skinned, black-haired and wide-eyed. I am born Negro here and Colored there and somewhere else, the Freedom Singers have linked arms, their protests rising into song: Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday. and somewhere else, James Baldwin is writing about injustice, each novel, each essay, changing the world. I do not yet know who I’ll be what I’ll say how I’ll say it . . . Not even three years have passed since a brown girl named Ruby Bridges walked into an all-white school. Armed guards surrounded her while hundreds of white people spat and called her names. She was six years old. I do not know if I’ll be strong like Ruby. I do not know what the world will look like when I am finally able to walk, speak, write . . . Another Buckeye! the nurse says to my mother. Already, I am being named for this place. Ohio. The Buckeye State. My fingers curl into fists, automatically This is the way, my mother said, of every baby’s hand. 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 . . .”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Nothing in the world is like this-
a bright white page with
pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil
the soft hush of it
moving finally
one day
into letters.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“It's easier to make up stories
than it is to write them down. When I speak, the words come pouring out of me. The story
wakes up and walks all over the room. Sits in a chair, crosses one leg over the other, says,
Let me introduce myself. Then just starts going on and on.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Everyone else
has gone away.
And now coming back home
isn't really coming back home at all.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Write down what I think I know. The knowing will come.

Just keep listening...”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“In downtown Greenville, they painted over the WHITE ONLY signs, except on the bathroom doors, they didn’t use a lot of paint so you can still see the words, right there like a ghost standing in front still keeping you out.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“If someone had taken that book out of my hand said, You’re too old for this maybe I’d never have believed that someone who looked like me could be in the pages of the book that someone who looked like me had a story.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Maybe, I am thinking, there is something hidden like this, in all of us. A small gift from the universe waiting to be discovered.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“Some evenings, I kneel toward Mecca with my uncle.
Maybe Mecca
is the place Leftie goes to in his mind, when
the memory of losing
his arm becomes too much. Maybe Mecca is
good memories,
presents and stories and poetry and arroz con pollo
and family and friends...

Maybe Mecca is the place everyone is looking for...

It's out there in front of you, my uncle says.

I know I'll know it
when I get there.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist
twirl across the page.
When they settle, it is too late.
The class has already moved on.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them
then blow gently,
watch them float
right out of my hands.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“This is the way brown people have to fight, my grandfather says. You can’t just put your fist up. You have to insist on something gently. Walk toward a thing slowly. But be ready to die, my grandfather says, for what is right. Be ready to die, my grandfather says, for everything you believe in.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

“But I don’t want to read faster or older or any way else that might make the story disappear too quickly from where it’s settling inside my brain, slowly becoming a part of me. A story I will remember long after I’ve read it for the second, third, tenth, hundredth time.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, quote from Brown Girl Dreaming

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