What's the world for you if you can't make it up the way you want it? — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
So this is what insanity is. Not goofy behavior, but watching a sudden change in the world you used to know. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The concept of physical beauty as a virtue is one of the dumbest, most pernicious and destructive ideas of the Western world,… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
My theory is that the world is a difficult place to live in and distraction is the name of the game. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharrassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world's resources. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“They had stared at her with great uncomprehending eyes. Eyes that questioned nothing and asked everything. Unblinking and unabashed, they stared up… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“In Tar Baby , the classic concept of the individual with a solid, coherent identity is eschewed for a model of identity… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I guess I'm depressed. I don't know. I can't explain it. Part of it is the irritability of being 84, and part… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The writing is - I'm free from pain. It's the place where I live; it's where I have control; it's where nobody… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I know what every colored woman in this country is doing... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Evil is not interesting. What is it, chopping off someone's head? We used to do that as kids, you know, you tear… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
...she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
It's always seemed to me that black people's grace has been with what they do with language. In Lorrain, Ohio, when I… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't… — 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
“And in all those escapes he could not help being astonished by the beauty of this land that was not his. He… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down,… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been… — 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
There are some very powerful contributions to knowledge in the scientific world or the legal world, but art is singular. That's why… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I'm a writer in the world. I translate the confusion that I might feel, the dread that I know I feel, moving… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl… — 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
