Jason Reynolds

“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.”

“Rap music was and is, for me, everything.”

“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.”

“The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.”

“I am a consummate metaphor addict.”

“The literary world has to compete with YouTube, Instagram, PlayStation, Xbox, Hulu.”

“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.”

“I believe that every character is a setting, a world with moving parts, and on the other hand, every setting is, in fact, a character - a living breathing thing with personality and backstory. The way stories come to life, at least for me, is when these elements commune in relationship to one another.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When Black Lives Matter started, it was polarizing.”

“I know the feeling of confusion and betrayal. I know the feeling of fearing for my life.”

“Queen Latifah was writing poetry. Maybe Latifah's 'Ladies First' and Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' are the same thing, a generation apart.”

“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.”

“It's hard to be what you can't see.”

“All the academy will tell you that the language that is familiar to you is not appropriate. and that's not to say that there shouldn't be a standard, but when I come to school with my friends' language, my grandmother's language, the language in my mouth - you're going to tell me that's improper?”

“All I want kids to know is that I see them for who they are and not who everyone thinks they are.”

“I write every single day.”

“Rap music was a savior to me.”

“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.”