My father saw two black men lynched on his street in Cartersville, as a child. And I think seeing two black businessmen… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I don't think one parent can raise a child. I don't think two parents can raise a child. You really need the… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting… — 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
I'm losing the definition now of politics. I sort of don't know what that is anymore. People say politically correct, I don't… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Movements toward freedom and the self-respect that comes from something other than what people think is their most important feature. — 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
Sometimes Joyce is hilarious. I read Finnegans Wake after graduate school and I had the great good fortune of reading it without… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
When she awoke there was a melody in her head she could not identify or recall ever hearing before. 'Perhaps I made… — 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
All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
I think there's data, and then there's information that comes from data, and then there's knowledge that comes from information. And then,… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
When I'm not creating or focusing on something I can imagine or invent, I think I go back over my life -… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
And talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain't. There're five or six kinds of black. Some… — 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
It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so… — 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
Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. — 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 Image
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 Image
If you can't count, they can cheat you. If you can't read, they can beat you. — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
