“Well, it probably won't live. They say the way her mama beat her she lucky to be alive herself. She be lucky… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Suspended between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, she couldn't get interested in leaving life or living it,… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Good for you. More it hurt more better it is. Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn't allowed to be and stay what I was [...]… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“If I did I didn't know it. What's it like, velvet?' 'Well, Lu, velvet is like the world was just born. Clean… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“You know, the kind who know Jesus by His first name, but out of politeness never use it even to His face.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Rainwater held on to pine needles for dear life and Beloved could not take her eyes off Sethe.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“When I first seed Cholly, I want you to know it was like all the bits of color from that time down… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "anything dead coming back to life hurts.” — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“...maybe you think up North is way different from down South. Don't believe it and don't count on it. Custom is just… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From Meridian. And the sounds of these places in their mouths make… — 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
“Her heart kicked and an itchy burning in her throat made her swallow all her saliva away. She didn't know which way… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
“Carefully they replaced the soil and covered the entire grave with uprooted grass. Neither one had spoken a word.” — 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
