Toni Morrison Quotes

She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
Toni Morrison

Friendship, Good, Mind

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
Toni Morrison

Yourself, Self, Another

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
Toni Morrison

Nature, Trying, Perfect

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

Book, Write, Read

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.
Toni Morrison

Life, Beauty, Remember

If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression.
Toni Morrison

End, Someone, Down

I like marriage. The idea.
Toni Morrison

Funny, Marriage, Idea

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.
Toni Morrison

Book, Write, Read

Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.
Toni Morrison

Black, Lives, Constant

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.
Toni Morrison

Black, Country, Become

I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons.
Toni Morrison

Black, Why, Else

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
Toni Morrison

Country, Else, American

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

Power, Self, Strange

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
Toni Morrison

No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything.
Toni Morrison

Black, Find, Moment

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.
Toni Morrison

Trust, Power, Before

My children are delightful people, whom I would love even if they weren't my children.
Toni Morrison

Love, Children, Weren

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.
Toni Morrison

Pain, Words, Same

Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.
Toni Morrison

Art, Black, Serious

Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth.
Toni Morrison

Children, Earth, Scorned

I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.
Toni Morrison

Family, Problem, Broken

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

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
Toni Morrison

Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.
Toni Morrison

Leader, Somebody

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
Toni Morrison

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: February 18, 1931

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