Toni Morrison Quotes

American - Novelist Born: February 18, 1931

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

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

Ride, You, Air, Could

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, You, Want, Write, Must, Been

Make a difference about something other than yourselves. Toni Morrison

Make A Difference, Difference, Something

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

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

Nature, Water, Memory, Trying, Perfect

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, You, Down, Own, Going

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

People, City, Black, Violence, Place

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

Moment, Black, You, Find, White, Out

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

Work, Angry, Anger, Go, Things, Get

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, Friend, Woman, Man, Me

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

Art, Black, Tolerance, Literature, Form

I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people. Toni Morrison

People, Thought, Person, Insult, Never

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

Yourself, Self, Ownership, One Thing

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

Life, Language, Die, Meaning, Measure

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

Women, Equality, Me, You, Personal, Two

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

People, Black, Smiling, Understanding

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, Words, Tough, Two

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, World, Remember, Enough

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

Love, Love Is, Thin

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

Work, People, Done, Shaping, How, Should

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, Man, Broken, Think, Problem

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

Community, Children, Alone, Child, You

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, Test, Strange, Ability

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

Leader, Responsibility, Take, Being

Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network. Toni Morrison

Money, People, Rich, Take For Granted

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

American, Country, White, Means, Else

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

Why, Nothing, Difficult, More, Handle

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