We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“She wants you here as much as I do. For her it is to save her life. For me it is to… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“I started out believing that life was made just so the world would have some way to think about itself, but that… — 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
Life that crawled, life that slunk and crept and never closed its eyes. Life that burrowed and scurried, and life so still… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“I learned much later to worship her, just as I learned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I learned, that the… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Word-work is sublime... because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference-the way in which we are… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Shadrack rose and returned to the cot, where he fell into the first sleep of his new life. A sleep deeper than… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“In trying to make the slave experience intimate, I hoped the sense of things being both under control and out of control… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
She left me the way people leave a hotel room. A hotel room is a place to be when you are doing… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“...because slave life had "busted her legs, back, head, eyes, hands, kidneys, womb and tongue," she had nothing left to make a… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Please don't settle for happiness. It's not good enough. Of course you deserve it, but if that's all you have in mind… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises…… — 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
