Toni Morrison Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude

• The writing is - I'm free of pain. It's the place where I live; it's where I have control; it's where nobody tells me what to do; it's where my imagination is fecund and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my body or anywhere when I'm writing.

  Toni Morrison

  Pain, Writing, Imagination

  "'I Regret Everything': Toni Morrison Looks Back On Her Personal Life". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. April 20, 2015.

• I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Firsts, Novel

  Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.97, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Self, Civilization

  "In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent" by Toni Morrison, www.thenation.com. March 23, 2013.

• I tell my students there is such a thing as 'writer's block,' and they should respect it. You shouldn't write through it. It's blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven't got it right now.

  Toni Morrison

  Block, Writing, Students

  Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.159, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.

  Toni Morrison

  Believe, Writing, Dark

  Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

• I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don't have answers to.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Ideas, Answers

• Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Done, World

• I write the way women have babies. You don't know it's going to be like that. If you did, there's no way you would go through with it.

  Toni Morrison

  Baby, Writing, Way

• 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

  Sweet, Writing, Thinking

• 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 get that sentence right that minute it's never going to show up again. And it isn't. But it doesn't matter-another one will, and it'll probably be better. And I don't mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it-and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.

  Toni Morrison

  Couple, Writing, Thinking

  Toni Morrison, Carolyn C. Denard (2008). “What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction”, p.79, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• 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.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspiration, Writing, Compelled

• There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises.... If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest, not what pays

  Toni Morrison

  Hard Work, Writing, Differences

  Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.170, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• I don't wait to be struck by lightning and I don't need certain slants of light in order to be able to write.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Light, Order

  Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.120, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book -- leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, a little ambiguity.

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Writing, Doors

• One has to work very carefully with what is in between the words. What is not said. Which is measure, which is rhythm and so on. So, it is what you don't write that frequently gives what you do write its power.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Giving, Said

• I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Thinking, Vision

• I type in one place, but I write all over the house.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, House, Type

  Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.99, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• The habit of getting up early, which I had formed when the children were young, now became my choice. I am not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down.

  Toni Morrison

  Witty, Children, Writing

• I don't want you to write about what you know, because you don't know anything. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend or your grandma... I'm getting a little tired of 'my life story as fiction'. Please don't tell me about your little life - is there nothing larger? More important?

  Toni Morrison

  Grandma, Writing, Tired

• The Nobel Prize is the best thing that can happen to a writer in terms of how it affects your contracts, the publishers, and the seriousness with which your work is taken. On the other hand, it does interfere with your private life, or it can if you let it, and it has zero effect on the writing. It doesn't help you write better and if you let it, it will intimidate you about future projects.

  Toni Morrison

  Zero, Taken, Writing

• When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don't overexplain, then anyone can overhear me.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, White, Able

• People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, People, Want

• There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.

  Toni Morrison

  Peace, War, Reading

  Toni Morrison (2007). “The Dancing Mind”, p.6, Vintage

• Write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

  Toni Morrison

  Writing, Scared, Knows

  "Toni Morrison cancels memoir contract due to 'not interesting' life" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. March 16, 2012.

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