Toni Morrison quotes - page 2

Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined. (Toni Morrison)
Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined. View quote
Toni Morrison
Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. 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. View quote
Toni Morrison
My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember. View quote
Toni Morrison
It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow. View quote
Toni Morrison
I know what every colored woman in this country is doing.... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I'm going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world. View quote
Toni Morrison
A man ain't nothing but a man. But a son? Well, now, that's somebody. View quote
Toni Morrison
Black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black and white, male and female. It's not so much that women write differently from men, but that black women write differently from white women. Black men don't write very differently from white men. View quote
Toni Morrison
Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be. View quote
Toni Morrison
If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy. View quote
Toni Morrison
But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer. (Toni Morrison)
At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens - that letting go - you let go because you can. View quote
Toni Morrison
She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. View quote
Toni Morrison
Love is never any better than the lover. View quote
Toni Morrison
What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not? View quote
Toni Morrison
He wants to put his story next to hers. View quote
Toni Morrison
Lonely was much better than alone. View quote
Toni Morrison
Anything dead coming back to life hurts. View quote
Toni Morrison
Let me tell you something. A man ain't a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can't chop down because they're inside. View quote
Toni Morrison
What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them. View quote
Toni Morrison
We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom. (Toni Morrison)
No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you. View quote
Toni Morrison
I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. View quote
Toni Morrison
For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction. View quote
Toni Morrison
You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you. View quote
Toni Morrison