A Quote by Jacqueline Woodson

We live inside our parents' backstory. — © Jacqueline Woodson
We live inside our parents' backstory.
I think we all are born inside of our parents' narratives. We stay there for a good while. We are taught their narratives about everything: their marriage, the world, God, gender, identity, etcetera. Then, at some point, our own narrative develops too much integrity to live inside that story. We don't ever fully escape it, but we move into our own stories.
Of course, we carry inside of ourselves our parents. Even when they are dead, we carry them inside ourselves. And they are carrying inside themselves their dead parents and so on and so forth. There is a legacy of language and culture and religion.
We live inside too much. We live inside and we have square thoughts and square ideas because we live in square houses. Our lives are colored by our environments. Our attention fields are colored by it.
When you're a regular on a TV show, they give you more of a backstory, so with these recurring gigs, you have to make up your own backstory.
Of course, we carry inside of ourselves our parents. Even when they are dead, we carry them inside ourselves. And they are carrying inside themselves their dead parents and so on and so forth. There is a legacy of language and culture and religion. In some cases, family stories told by grandparents to little grandchildren. When I say my novels are set in Israel in the last seventy years, this entails the fact that they begin hundreds or thousands of years earlier in time. Everybody comes from somewhere.
For me, as an actor, the most challenging thing is creating the character in the beginning because you have to write their backstory. The easy part about doing a sequel is that you've done the film, so you already know their backstory.
We see systematically taught in our high schools today that kids not have to hear their parents, that they can make their own rules, and not even live by what their parents, so there's no guidance from the parents. And there's a concerted effort why - government must be their God.
we all carry the Houses of our Youth inside, and our Parents, too, grown small enough to fit within our Hearts.
I love making the backstory for myself. I think it's important. Every part I play, I work on the backstory. If it's fully written out in the script, or there are intimations of it in the script, fine. If not, fine, no problem. I'll fill it in, or I'll create what it is.
The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our place in history presents us with.
If we are at war with our parents, our family, our society, or our church, there is probably a war going on inside us also, so the most basic work for peace is to return to ourselves and create harmony among the elements within us - our feelings, our perceptions, and our mental states. That is why the practice of meditation, looking deeply, is so important.
If you are conscious and really want change in this world, and you don't vote, then what was all the fighting for? All the things our parents and our parents' parents fought for?
One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
I obeyed my parents' rules inside our Chinese household while I pursued my dreams in the American world outside.
Everyone needs acknowledgement. When we're kids, we need it from our parents. If you don't get love from your family, you're destroyed inside.
Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!