I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later. Toni Morrison More Quotes by Toni Morrison More Quotes From Toni Morrison The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. Toni Morrison strangetestsself Let your face speak what's in your heart. Toni Morrison speakfacesheart You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human... And although you don't have complete control over the narrative - no author does, I can tell you - you could nevertheless create it. Toni Morrison graduationinspirationalmean We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom. Toni Morrison leisurepassionviolence For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction. Toni Morrison restorationorderart Black people's music is in a class by itself and always has been. There's nothing like it. The reason for that is because it was not tampered with by white people. It was not on the media. It was not anywhere except where black people were. And it is one of the art forms in which black people decided what is good in it. Nobody told them. What surfaced and what floated to the top, were the giants and the best. Toni Morrison mediaclassart It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love ... You can't own a human being. Toni Morrison bad-wordhumanslove-you No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything. Toni Morrison everything-happens-for-a-reasonwhiteprofound Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharrassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world's resources. Toni Morrison ignorantbullyracist I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man. Toni Morrison broken-heartrunningmen From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art. Toni Morrison graduationinspirationalart You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you. Toni Morrison obliged Today is always here,' said Sethe. 'Tomorrow, never. Toni Morrison tomorrowsaidtoday The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason. Toni Morrison hateraceplay Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes. Toni Morrison pitseyespring Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined. Toni Morrison defineddefinitions One has to work very carefully with what is in between the words. What is not said. Which is measure, which is rhythm and so on. So, it is what you don't write that frequently gives what you do write its power. Toni Morrison saidwritinggiving I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. Toni Morrison falling-in-loverosefall Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet. Toni Morrison writingsweetthinking You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself. Toni Morrison girlmeanfall
