Quotes from Toni Morrison

The light, therefore, was always misleading.

Not like 'me' was some tough somebody, or somebody she had put together for show. But like somebody she favored and could count on. A secret somebody you didn't have to feel sorry for or have to fight for.

They held hands and knew that only the coffin would lie in the earth; the bubbly laughter and the press of fingers in the palm would stay aboveground forever.

Their laughter had been more touch than sound.

if she wishes to be American—to be known as such and to actually belong—she must become a thing unimaginable in her home country: she must become white.

I have been told that there are two human responses to the perception of chaos: naming and violence. . . There is, however, a third response to chaos, which I have not heard about, which is stillness. Such stillness can be passivity and dumbfoundedness; it can be paralytic fear. But it can also be art.

focused, therefore, on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female.

She looked around for a place to be. A small place. The closet? No. Too dark. The bathroom. It was both small and bright, an she wanted to be in a very small, very bright place. Small enough to contain her grief. Bright enough to throw into relief the dark things that cluttered her.

But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over.

If ever there came a morning when mercy and simple good fortune took to their heels and fled, grace alone might have to do.

She is the laugh; I am the laughter.

songs of unreasonable joy.

Janie had robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness that all men cherish, which was terrible. The thing that Saul's daughter had done to David. But Janie had done worse...

The piece of sky she could glimpse was a dark carpet of gleaming knives pointed at her and aching to be released. She felt world-hurt—an awareness of malign forces changing her from a courageous adventurer into a fugitive.

I need to use everything—sound, image, performance—to get at the full meaning of the story

She looked around for a place to be. A small place. The closet? No. Too dark. The bathroom. It was both small and bright, and she wanted to be in a very small, very bright place. Small enough to contain her grief. Bright enough to throw into relief the dark things that cluttered her.

But the stillness was the sleep of swords.

He had a flattering view of me as someone interesting, capable, witty, smart, high-spirited. I did not share that view of myself, and wondered why he held it. But it was the death of that girl - the one who lived in his head - that I mourned when he died. Even more than I mourned him, I suffered the loss of the person he thought I was.

like a sore tooth that is not content to throb in isolation, but must diffuse its own pain to other parts of the body- making breathing difficult, vision difficult, nerves unsettled

There was no point in questioning him. Just as long ago, when they ventured hand in hand into unknown territory, Cee accompanied her big brother silently. As annoyed as she was now at her relapse into doing what others wanted, she nevertheless cooperated. This one time, she told herself. I don't want Frank making decisions for me.

Hunched down in the small bright room Nel waited. Waited for the oldest cry. A scream not for others, not in sympathy for a burnt child, or a dead father, but a deeply personal cry for one's own pain. A loud, strident: Why me? She waited. The mud shifted, the leaves stirred, the smell of overripe green things enveloped her and announced the beginnings of her very own howl. But it did not come.

The two oldest fought in the First World War, the rest battled in the Second. They knew about Korea but not understanding what it was about didn't give it the respect—the seriousness—Frank thought it deserved. The veterans ranked battles and wars according to loss numbers: three thousand at this place, sixty thousand in the trenches, twelve thousand at another. The more killed, the braver the warriors, not the stupider the commanders.

lay it all down, sword and shield.

Together the old man and the boy sat on the grass and shared the heart of the watermelon. The nasty-sweet guts of the earth.