Toni Morrison Quotes

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

I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.
Toni Morrison

Wanted, Read, Novel

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

Nothing, Else, American

For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event.
Toni Morrison

Time, Long, Black

I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.
Toni Morrison

Money, Black, Poor

I merged those two words, black and feminist, because I was surrounded by black women who were very tough and and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes.
Toni Morrison

Work, Women, Children

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.
Toni Morrison

Work, Done, Views

It's been mentioned or suggested that Paradise will not be well studied, because it's about this unimportant intellectual topic, which is religion.
Toni Morrison

Religion, Paradise, Mentioned

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.
Toni Morrison

Difference, Yourselves

Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable.
Toni Morrison

Single, Problems, Sense

The body is ready to have babies. Nature wants it done then, when the body can handle it, not after 40, when the income can handle it.
Toni Morrison

Nature, Done, After

The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time; the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no time to really read the book.
Toni Morrison

Time, Book, Short

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, Women, Two

Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.
Toni Morrison

War, Black, Country

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

Writing, Everything, Done

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

Help, Writing, Talent

I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.
Toni Morrison

Character, Thinking, Problems

One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.
Toni Morrison

Political, Hatred, Kids

Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time.
Toni Morrison

Time, Job, Long

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.
Toni Morrison

Enjoy, American, Writers

There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.
Toni Morrison

Education, Nothing, Black

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

Nothing, Why, Difficult

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

Words, After, Choice

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: February 18, 1931

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