Toni Morrison Quotes

She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.

If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.

Writing is really a way of thinking-not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

I get angry about things, then go on and work.

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I'm not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for all that.

I don't believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but they were political, because that's what an artist is―a politician.

When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don't overexplain, then anyone can overhear me.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

Language, when it finally comes, has the vigor of a felon pardoned after twenty-one years on hold. Sudden, raw, stripped to its underwear.

He wondered if there was anyone in the world who liked him. Liked him for himself alone.

Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.

if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.

Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.'

Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part.

It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "anything dead coming back to life hurts.