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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.
Toni Morrison