Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What you say is what matters.
Keep on doing what you're doing.
Reading equals hope times change.
I write for whoever needs to read it.
We live inside our parents' backstory.
In all your getting, get understanding.
I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.
I'm still afraid. I'm still afraid every day.
There's me in every character I put on the pages.
That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear.
If you have no road map, you have to create your own.
When I write, I don't think about messages for my readers.
I wrote all the time, and I had teachers who encouraged it.
I think 'Miracle's Boys' made more people aware of my work.
I don't know how women stop being friends with other women.
Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen.
Every time you revisit a book, you get something else out of it.
Yes, writing is not easy. But can any writer imagine NOT writing?
I think I'd rather have my heart broke than do the breaking. —Lena
I rewrite a lot until I get the rhythm and story right on the page.
I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.
When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.
Until I was about 13, Manhattan had been a world seen from its edges.
You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.
By the time I was in fifth grade, I was dreaming of the Pulitzer Prize.
But on paper, things can live forever. On paper, a butterfly never dies.
I've learned about marrying poetry and prose and making both accessible.
Greenville, S.C., in the 1970s is a rolling green dream in my memory now.
You're a part of me...You're in my heart. Forever and always, all right? —D
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The Bible is big in the religion, treating people as you want to be treated.
'Another Brooklyn' came to me in this kind of dreamlike series of vignettes.
Labeling is not the best way to get young people to deeply engage in reading.
Both racism and homophobia come from a sense of the presumed and the unknown.
I think there is such a richness to the South and a lushness and a way of life.
Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.
Each book I write is a shout into the silence and a prayer and a plea for change.
Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.
I think people are willing to talk about anything if you come to it with kindness.
If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them." —Staggerlee
I love how much love there is in the world of young adult and children's literature.
I still love Carson McCullers and Raymond Carver and Toni Morrison and James Baldwin.
I don't believe there are 'struggling' readers, 'advanced' readers, or 'non' readers.
I am still surprised when I walk into a bookstore and see my name on a book's binder.
What I learned for myself... is that no matter what the circumstances, people survive.
I always say I write because I have lots of questions, not because I have any answers.
The writing that I have found to be most false is the writing that doesn't offer hope.
In writing 'Another Brooklyn,' I had to imagine what happens when friendships dissolve.
I have a short attention span, so when one book isn't working out, I just work on another.
I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.