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Quotes About Longing

Is that what happened? Standing in the cane, he was trying to catch a girl he was yet to see, but his heart knew all about, and me, holding on to him but wishing he was the golden boy I never saw either. Which means from the very beginning I was a substitute and so was he.
~ Toni Morrison
Lay my head on the railroad line, Train come along, pacify my mind.
~ Toni Morrison
Like the others, they were country people, but how soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city, it is for forever, and it is like forever.
~ Toni Morrison
My melancholy thoughts are back. But I still love the idea of love.
~ Toni Morrison
All that time, all that time, I thought I was missing Jude." And the loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. "We was girls together," she said as though explaining something. "O Lord, Sula," she cried, "girl, girl, girlgirlgirl." It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.
~ Toni Morrison
then there is still more that Paul D could tell me and my brain would go right ahead and take it and never say, No thank you. I don't want to know or have to remember that. I have other things to do: worry, for example, about tomorrow, about Denver, about Beloved, about age and sickness not to speak of love. But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.
~ Toni Morrison
You always end up back where you started: hungry for the one thing everybody loses – young loving.
~ Toni Morrison
How come everybody run off from Sweet Home can't stop talking about it? Look like if it was so sweet you would have stayed. Girl who you talking to? Paul D laughed. True, true. She's right, Sethe. It wasn't sweet and it sure wasn't home. He shook his head. But it's where we were, said Sethe. All together. Comes back whether we want it to or not.
~ Toni Morrison
You are my face; I am you. Why did you leave me who am you? I will never leave you again Don't ever leave me again You will never leave me again You went in the water I drank your blood I brought your milk You forgot to smile I loved you You hurt me You came back to me You left me I waited for you
~ Toni Morrison
Whatever happens, whether you get rich or stay poor, ruin your health or live to old age, you always end up back where you started: hungry for the one thing everybody loses- young loving.
~ Toni Morrison
To go back to the original hunger was impossible.
~ Toni Morrison
florens would sigh then, her head on lina's shoulder and when sleep came the little girl's smiel lingered. mother hunger – to be one or have one – both of them were reeling from that longing which, lina knes, remained alive, traveling to the bone.
~ Toni Morrison
Rainwater held on to pine needles for dear life and Beloved could not take her eyes off Sethe.
~ Toni Morrison
She banged her knuckles until they ached to get the attention of the living flesh behind the glass, and would have smashed her fist through the window just to touch him, feel his heat, the only thing that could protect her from a smothering death of dry roses.
~ Toni Morrison
Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence. An absence so decorative, so ornate, it was difficult for her to understand how she had ever endured, without falling dead or being consumed, his magnificent presence.
~ Toni Morrison
though she could remember desire, she had forgotten how it worked; the clutch and helplessness that resided in the hands; how blindness was altered so that what leapt to the eye were places to lie down, and all else—doorknobs, straps, hooks, the sadness that crouched in corners, and the passing of time—was interference.
~ Toni Morrison
Sleep without the fragrance of her hair next to him was impossible.
~ Toni Morrison
I can never not have you have me.
~ Toni Morrison
Tears streamed down his face and he cradled the barrel of the shotgun in his arms as though it were the woman he had been begging for, searching for, all his life. Gimme hate, Lord, he whimpered. I'll take hate any day . But don't give me love. I can't take no more love, Lord. I can't carry it. It's too heavy.
~ Toni Morrison
Mother hunger - to be one or have one - both of them were reeling from that long which, Lina knew, remained alive, traveling the bone.
~ Toni Morrison
I stroked every inch of his golden skin. Sucked his earlobes. I know the quality of the hair in his armpit. I fingered the dimples in his upper lip. I poured red wine in his navel and drank its spill. There's no place on my body his lips did not turn into bolts of lightning. Oh God..I have to stop reliving our lovemaking. I have to forget how new it felt every single time. Both fresh and somehow eternal. I'm tone deaf, but fucking him made me sing.
~ Toni Morrison
Knowing that she would hate him long and well filled her with pleasant anticipation, like when you know you are going to fall in love with someone and you wait for the happy signs.
~ Toni Morrison
Looking at Milkman in those nighttime talks, they yearned for something. Some word from him that would rekindle the dream and stop the death they were dying.
~ Toni Morrison
Todo lo que buscan, tío, es su propio sufrimiento. Pídeles que mueran por ti y serán tuyas para toda la vida.
~ Toni Morrison