Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
If there's a book that you want to read,but hasn't been written yet,then you must write it. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“All narrative begins for me as listening. When I read, I listen. When I write, I listen—for silence, inflection, rhythm, rest.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Books ARE a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Intimacy is extremely important to me and I want it to be extremely important to the readers. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I have a lot of respect for readers because I'm a reader. That's how I got into writing. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I feel like today we always glorify the young, just-plucked-from-college writer. But it's much harder to start writing later, in middle age,… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“I think long and carefully about what novels ought to do. They should clarify the roles that have become obscured; they ought… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Sex is difficult to write about because it's just not sexy enough. The only way to write about it is not to… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I'm just trying to look at something without blinking, to see what it is like, or it could have been like, and… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
There's a contract that I make between myself, the author, and the reader. I have to figure out how to give the… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Most of the really good literature I've read in my life was political, meaning it was important - about something going on… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
When I write, I don't translate for white readers… Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Criticism as a form of knowledge is capable of robbing literature not only of its own implicit and explicit ideology but of… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The idea of a wanton woman is something I have inserted into almost all of my books. An outlaw figure who is… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
All the books that were being published by African-American guys were saying 'screw whitey', or some variation of that. Not the scholars… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I think being an editor really helped me take other people's notes on my writing. I'd get a note like 'It's too… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic…Authors… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Some literature is knowledge, some is just data. But if I can get a "happy" ending - which is when for the… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
If you can't count, they can cheat you. If you can't read, they can beat you. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
As a writer reading, I came to realize the obvious: the subject of the dream is the dreamer. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“I am really Chloe Anthony Wofford. That's who I am. I have been writing under this other person's name. I write some… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time; the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human… And although you don't… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“The idea of a wanton woman is something I have inserted into almost all of my books. An outlaw figure who is… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Perhaps that's what all human relationships boiled down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it? — Toni Morrison Copy Share
There, in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had… — Toni Morrison Copy Share
If you can't count, they can cheat you. If you can't read, they can beat you. — Toni Morrison Copy Share
“You looked at them and wondered why the were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that… — Toni Morrison Copy Share
All she saw, down in the cellar well beneath the stoop, was a light yellow feather with a tip of green. And she had… — Toni Morrison Copy Share
For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end.… — Toni Morrison Copy Share
“Hate does that. Burns off everything but itself, so whatever your grievance is, your face looks just like your enemy's.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share
“You know how a star is supposed to twinkle? We say twinkle because that is how it looks, but when a star feels itself,… — Toni Morrison Copy Share
My father saw two black men lynched on his street in Cartersville, as a child. And I think seeing two black businessmen - not… — Toni Morrison Copy Share
“She was fierce in the presence of death, heroic even, as she was at no other time. Its threat gave her direction, clarity, audacity.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share
![“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It…” quote by Toni Morrison](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/10f/toni-morrison-271_black-people_i-never-asked-tolstoy-to-write-for-me-a_2373935.jpg)
