People are like, "Well it's not standard English." So what? Standard English is for standard people. - Jason Reynolds

Who else is there to write for, as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather go ahead and tap into these kids, who still are malleable, but who also have insight into things that we don’t know, with vision that we no longer have; who have imaginations that have already been zapped from us.

My uncle used to say that the good books begin with “… and shots rang out.” Shots rang out is a cliché, but what he meant is that no one has time for you to get us to the minefield. Drop us in the midfield in the beginning. Drop us off in the mix and you can move backward and forward from there. End in the mix. Don’t answer any questions. Leave me in the muck at the end, too. There can be less muck, but all the loose ends shouldn’t be tied up. There should be something unreconciled. That’s life. Nobody’s life is tied up in a bow. Stories that end in a bow are kind of disrespectful to the reader. If you want your story to be compelling, let it fade to black without reconciliation.

I love these kids. I’m just here to bear witness to their lives, because I believe that it is in bearing witness that everything is made real.