Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I write every single day.
Rap music was a savior to me.
Rappers were my storytellers.
I wanted to be Langston Hughes.
I am a consummate metaphor addict.
It's hard to be what you can't see.
'To Kill a Mockingbird' wasn't about me.
Rap music was and is, for me, everything.
Sometimes it's okay for careers to find you.
Boston is pretty infamous for race relations.
When Black Lives Matter started, it was polarizing.
The feeling of self-discovery, for me, is perennial.
I love, loved, loved 'We Real Cool' by Gwendolyn Brooks.
I'm writing all the books I wish I had when I was a kid.
We've always been told to pretend as if we're not afraid.
One thing I wish I'd been told in school is that my language is valid.
When I was a kid, I couldn't see life outside ramen noodles and Kool-Aid.
We all want to believe in the magic of someone knowing what we're thinking.
I write about six to seven hours a day, five days a week, unless I'm traveling.
I try to create characters people want to sit with, even if nothing is happening.
The literary world has to compete with YouTube, Instagram, PlayStation, Xbox, Hulu.
I know the feeling of confusion and betrayal. I know the feeling of fearing for my life.
All I want kids to know is that I see them for who they are and not who everyone thinks they are.
Rappers are the white authors of our generation. They know me, my language, my codes, my family, my block.
Grief is like mending a knee. You can mend the knee and make it function, but the knee never actually heals.
The stories of kids who grew up in communities like mine weren't being written about in many books for kids.
Writing is like any other sort of sport. In order for you to get better at it, you have to exercise the muscle.
The idea of the mask in any scenario has always fascinated me. Not only does it protect identity, it also allows one to hide.
If a kid is reading a book about someone who looks like them but doesn't talk like them, we stunt their growth by dissing them.
The truth of the matter is that chess is not the game of life because life does not ever happen the way you strategize and plan.
Queen Latifah was writing poetry. Maybe Latifah's 'Ladies First' and Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' are the same thing, a generation apart.
The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.
I have a hard time with people who say they write for children but they don't really like children. I love children. I love talking with them.
I was eight years old when I got the talk about what to do if a police officer stops me. I was 15 when I was face-down on the curb for the first time.
The truth is, my life was made infinitely more difficult because I didn't read any books. But I didn't read any books. That's my story. That's my truth.
Hip-hop saved me. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance.
Gratitude is one of the greatest gifts we can give. And it's not a gift we often give to children. We expect it of them, but we don't necessarily give it back.
The people who know me do not ask me about the next book or how it's going. They ask, 'Jason, are you sleeping?' because they know my brain will not shut down.
Be not afraid of discomfort. If you can't put yourself in a situation where you are uncomfortable, then you will never grow. You will never change. You'll never learn.
I just want young people to read my books and feel cared for, feel safe, feel like there's someone else in the world who understands - or at least acknowledges - your existence.
I read 'The Young Landlords' and felt almost a chemical change. What I realized while reading that book was that I could write in my voice, use my tongue, my language, my style, and write a story.
Having a superpower has nothing to do with the ability to fly or jump, or superhuman strength. The truest superpowers are the ones we all possess: willpower, integrity, and most importantly, courage.
I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can't be diversified, there's no room for more brown faces - that fueled my fire.
People always say time heals. Time doesn't necessarily heal anything. It allows you to manage things. There are occasions where you feel the pain as if it just happened, but you know that it's a fleeting moment.
I would go to the store, I would buy cassette tapes, and I would read the liner notes and sort of subconsciously creating the connections between the rappers that I was reading and the poets that they were teaching us in school.
I read tons of books, listen to music non-stop, watch as many movies as possible, catch a play when I can, art shows, concerts, bar talks - I just try to engage in art, which to me is everywhere, as often as I can because narrative lives in it all.
It's naive of adults to believe that young people aren't aware of what is going on in the world. The best thing we can do is confront that to help them navigate it. We can help them say, 'These things are happening. What does that mean for your life?'
I wanted to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry around eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through hip-hop lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah's 'Black Reign' is the album that stands out the most.
Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality, a natural flow. The separate stanzas aid in perpetuating a kind of incremental reading, one small chunk at a time.
My relationship to comics isn't nearly as strong as some people's. Ha! I mean, I grew up with a comic book fanatic. My older brother was, and still is, obsessed. And I was obsessed with the fact that he was obsessed, because I was obsessed with him. But not necessarily with comics themselves.