All Toni Morrison Quotes
- I can't explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn't really be a writer. Compelled
- If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more. Funny
- Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself Creativity
- The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again,… Art
- Who's Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Lion or the Mouse? Poppy or the Snake? Ant
- What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us. Hate
- The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do… Concept
- Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight,… Alfred
- All the books that were being published by African-American guys were saying 'screw whitey', or some variation of that. Not the scholars but the pop… African
- All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in. All
- We read about how Ajax and Achilles will die for each other, but very little about the friendship of women. Achilles
- A man ain't nothing but a man. But a son? Well, now, that's somebody Inspirational
- All the time, I'm afraid the thing that happened that made it all right for my mother to kill my sister could happen again. I… Afraid
- The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time. Able
- I really want some meaning. It used to be easy to toss it off. Now it's harder and harder. You have to navigate just to… Absence
- I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are Any
- Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand… Access
- You your own best thing, Sethe. You are. Best
- You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone. Alone
- 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 child treasured Adults