There is something so deeply visceral about libraries for me-rooms and rooms full of people dreaming and remembering.
Interpretation
Libraries evoke deep emotions as spaces filled with dreams and memories.
Jacqueline Woodson's quote highlights the profound connection people have with libraries, viewing them as sanctuaries filled with the collective dreams and memories of individuals. Libraries serve not only as places for knowledge but also as unique environments where the imagination can flourish, and the past can be revisited.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one might reference this quote to emphasize the role of libraries.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets.
I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.
I did not even finish my studies
Let us not forget the genial miraculous force we have known to proceed from a book.
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