Toni Morrison Quotes - Page 9

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No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along.

Toni Morrison

Lying, Miracle, Magic

7 Copy quote
Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light.

Toni Morrison

Memories, Light, Dust

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How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked. Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’ The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion.

Toni Morrison

Giving Up, Vanity, Tails

Toni Morrison (1987). “Sula”

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Sweet, she thought. He must think I can't bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told him and after telling me how many feet I have, "goodbye" would break me to pieces. Ain't that sweet. "So long," she murmured from the far side of the trees.

Toni Morrison

Goodbye, Sweet, Thinking

Toni Morrison (2014). “Beloved”, p.95, Random House

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Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

Toni Morrison

Running, School, Cities

Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.258, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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There are some very powerful contributions to knowledge in the scientific world or the legal world, but art is singular. That's why every dictator gets rid of the artists first. They burn the books and execute the artists first. Then they get on with whatever else they're interested in. Art might do something. It's dangerous.

Toni Morrison

Art, Powerful, Book

Source: theharvardadvocate.com

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I am a moralist. I worry.

Toni Morrison

Worry, Moralist

Source: wordmag.com

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In becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me-it's nothing else but color.

Toni Morrison

Color, Europe, Becoming

Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.255, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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All art is knowing when to stop.

Toni Morrison

Art, Knowing, Art Is

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Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

Toni Morrison

Equality, Sisterhood, Rights

Barnard College Commencement Address, May 1979.

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I have difficulties with contemporary language. Big difficulties. I counted, you know, something like 160 words have disappeared from the English language because of the use of the word "like." "I'm like, he's like" - not "thought," not "as if ."

Toni Morrison

Use, Language, Bigs

Source: theharvardadvocate.com

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My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.

Toni Morrison

History, Black, Female Writers

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An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.

Toni Morrison

Fall, Angel, Godly

"Tar Baby". Book by Toni Morrison, 1981.

18 Copy quote
You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.

Toni Morrison

Long, Confusion, Devil

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The language must be careful and must appear effortless. It must not sweat. It must suggest and be provocative at the same time.

Toni Morrison

Sweat, Language, Provocative

Toni Morrison, Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (1994). “Conversations with Toni Morrison”, p.123, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. ‘You your best thing, Sethe. You are.’ His holding fingers are holding hers. ‘Me? Me?

Toni Morrison

Hands, Faces, Fingers

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

5 Copy quote
If he looked into her face, he would see those haunted, loving eyes. The hauntedness would irritate him - the love would move him to fury. How dare she love him? Hadn't she any sense at all? What was he supposed to do about that? Return it? How? What could his calloused hands produce to make her smile? What of his knowledge of the world and of life could be useful to her? What could his heavy arms and befuddled brain accomplish that would earn him his own respect, that would in turn allow him to accept her love?

Toni Morrison

Moving, Eye, Loving Life

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You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?

Toni Morrison

Moon, Sky, Choices

"A Writer Not Fusty, if Addicted to Mystery". www.nytimes.com. October 05, 2005.

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When a man angers you, he conquers you.

Toni Morrison

Men, Conquer

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A dead hydrangea is as intricate and lovely as one in bloom. Bleak sky is as seductive as sunshine, miniature orange trees without blossom or fruit are not defective; they are that.

Toni Morrison

Sunshine, Orange Trees, Sky

Toni Morrison (1987). “Tar Baby”, New Amer Library

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Evil is so seductive. It needs to grind you up and make you its slave.

Toni Morrison

Evil, Seductive, Needs

Source: wordmag.com

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Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?

Toni Morrison

Beloved, Feels

"Beloved". Book by Toni Morrison, 1987.

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In Tar Baby, the classic concept of the individual with a solid, coherent identity is eschewed for a model of identity which sees the individual as a kaleidoscope of heterogeneous impulses and desires, constructed from multiple forms of interaction with the world as a play of difference that cannot be completely comprehended.

Toni Morrison

Baby, Play, Differences

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I don't do the things other people call "play."

Toni Morrison

Play, People

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The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers.

Toni Morrison

Lying, Vitality, Language

Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

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Latest quotes from interviews

"The children - I call them children when they're under 18 - are hungry for that love. The drugs are just a sleep that you can't even wake up from, because you might remember what you did when you were there. There's no place for them - there should be a rehabilitation center on every corner, along with McDonald's and the banks. This is serious business. The waiting lists are incredible. I mean, it's terrible. It's really terrible."

- Toni Morrison,

www.truth-out.org, added Nov 13, 2017

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Toni Morrison

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Born: February 18, 1931
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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