Quotes from Toni Morrison

fact was she knew more about them than she knew about herself, having never had the map to discover what she was like. Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend? Could she have been a loving mother? A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If my mother knew me would she like me? (140)

Hate does that. Burns off everything but itself, so whatever your grievance is, your face looks just like your enemy's.

There is no protection. To be female in this place is to be an open wound that cannot heal. Even if scars form, the festering is ever below.

Pain was greedy; it demanded all of her attention.

In a way, her strangeness, her naivete, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings; had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like any artist with no art from, she became dangerous.

No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along.

Birth, life, and death? each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.

The human body is robust. It can gather strength when it's in mortal danger.

I've traveled. All over. I've never seen anything like you. How could anything be put together like you? Do you know how beautiful you are? Have you looked at yourself?' 'I'm looking now.

Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed, she said, and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks.

Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be.

The best thing she was, was her children.

More than fear of loving bears or birds bigger than cows, I fear pathless nights. How, I wonder, can I find you in the dark?

There is a difference between being put out and being put outdoors. If you are put out, you go somewhere else; if you are outdoors, there is no place to go. The distinction was subtle but final. Outdoors was the end of something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and complementing our metaphysical condition... Dead doesn't change, and outdoors is here to stay.

Don't let anybody, anybody convince you this is the way the world is and therefore must be. It must be the way it ought to be.

Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this.

The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.

Much handled things are always soft(27).

They will blow it, she thought. Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow—some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite that story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin.

She needed what most colored girls needed: a chorus of mamas, grandmamas, aunts, cousins, sisters, neighbors, Sunday school teachers, best girl friends, and what all to give her the strength life demanded of her—and the humor with which to live it.

Shallow believers prefer a shallow God.

So this is what insanity is. Not goofy behavior, but watching a sudden change in the world you used to know.

Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

Adults do not talk to us—they give us directions. They issue orders without providing information.