Toni Morrison Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  14 Copy quote

• The theme you choose may change or simply elude you, but being your own story means you can always choose the tone. It also means that you can invent the language to say who are you and what you mean.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Mean, Elude You

  Toni Morrison's Commencement Address to the Wellesley College Class of 2004, web.wellesley.edu. 2004.

  13 Copy quote

• What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?

  Toni Morrison

  Fear, Real, Differences

  Toni Morrison (1987). “Sula”

  10 Copy quote

• The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

  Toni Morrison

  Self, Tests, Strange

  FaceBook post by Toni Morrison from Dec 20, 2010

  12 Copy quote

• There is really nothing more to say - except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

  Toni Morrison

  Beloved, Difficult, Refuge

  "The Bluest Eye". Book by Toni Morrison, 1969.

  17 Copy quote

• So this is what insanity is. Not goofy behavior, but watching a sudden change in the world you used to know.

  Toni Morrison

  Insanity, World, Sudden Change

  Toni Morrison (2015). “God Help the Child: A novel”, p.42, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Let your face speak what's in your heart. When my kids walk in the room my face says I'm glad to see them.

  Toni Morrison

  Heart, Kids, Rooms

  9 Copy quote

• Anything dead coming back to life hurts.

  Toni Morrison

  Hurt, Beloved, Coming Back

  Toni Morrison (2014). “Beloved”, p.32, Random House

  10 Copy quote

• 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, after knowledge, there is wisdom. I am interested in how to get from data to wisdom.

  Toni Morrison

  Thinking, Data, Information

  Source: theharvardadvocate.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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 find something that has nourishment. It's the absence of nourishment. What do you do in place of nourishment? It's usually junk. Either it's junk food or junk clothes or junk ideas.

  Toni Morrison

  Ideas, Clothes, Junk

  38 Copy quote

• I get angry about things, then go on and work.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspiring, Goes On, Angry

  17 Copy quote

• 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 virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.

  Toni Morrison

  Wisdom, Civilization, Library

  14 Copy quote

• Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created.

  Toni Morrison

  Creating, Narrative, Revolutionary

  Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

  8 Copy quote

• Literature, it seems to me, is wisdom.

  Toni Morrison

  Literature, Seems

  Source: theharvardadvocate.com

  6 Copy quote

• A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double.

  Toni Morrison

  Sister, Sibling, Special

  90 Copy quote

• A dream is just a nightmare with lipstick.

  Toni Morrison

  Dream, Nightmare, Lipstick

  Toni Morrison (2008). “Love”, p.201, Random House

  19 Copy quote

• The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason.

  Toni Morrison

  Hate, Race, Play

  Source: www.goodreads.com

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• I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.

  Toni Morrison

  Falling In Love, Fall, Rose

  Toni Morrison (1992). “Jazz”, Alfred a Knopf Inc

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• What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us.

  Toni Morrison

  Hate, White, People

  Toni Morrison (1987). “Sula”

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  14 Copy quote

• Today is always here,' said Sethe. 'Tomorrow, never.

  Toni Morrison

  Today, Tomorrow, Said

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• 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

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• 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

  33 Copy quote

• Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.

  Toni Morrison

  Children, Next, Littles

  FaceBook post by Toni Morrison from Aug 23, 2014

  47 Copy quote

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