Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. Toni Morrison More Quotes by Toni Morrison More Quotes From Toni Morrison In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. Toni Morrison inspirational mean country I like marriage. The idea. Toni Morrison witty fun funny A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double. Toni Morrison sister sibling special I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don't have answers to. Toni Morrison answers writing ideas It's bliss when you give up all that stuff that separates you from other human beings. It's hard, but you break down all that stuff. Toni Morrison bliss giving-up stuff She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make? Toni Morrison gratitude hurt beer A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences. Toni Morrison silence desire ideas Nobody loved her and she wouldn’t have liked it if they had, she considered love a serious disability. Toni Morrison disability serious ifs When you stiffen, you know that whatever you stiffen about is very important. The stuff is important, the fear itself is information. Toni Morrison information important stuff You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say? Toni Morrison choices moon sky Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live Toni Morrison fruit land bears We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. Toni Morrison meaning-of-life communication may My home is such a powerfully imaginative place that the space is almost irrelevant. I think the house I live at on the Hudson is where I belong because it's the only place where I am that I never think about when I'm leaving. Toni Morrison space home thinking There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. Toni Morrison silence loneliness profound In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book -- leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, a little ambiguity. Toni Morrison writing doors book American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen. Toni Morrison ethnicity struggle mean Unless carefree, mother love was a killer. Toni Morrison killers beloved mother The habit of getting up early, which I had formed when the children were young, now became my choice. I am not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down. Toni Morrison writing witty children Shallow believers prefer a shallow God. Toni Morrison shallow believer Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. Toni Morrison inspirational love thinking
