Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

Toni Morrison Quotes

American - Novelist Born: February 18, 1931

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, Read, Been

Make a difference about something other than yourselves. Toni Morrison

Other, About, Than

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

Ownership, Claiming, Freeing

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, Could, Air

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

May, Measure, Die

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

Nepotism, Everybody, Upper

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, Woman, Back

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, Revelation, About

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

Art, Literature, Rigorous

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

Country, Jewish People

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

Beauty, Need, Some

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

Read, Badly, Took

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

Country, Everybody, Means

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

Other, Chain, Confined

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

Trust, Dream, Think

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

Self, Test, Imagine

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, Read, Been

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

City, Black, Amount

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

Broken, Think, House

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

Country, Always, Been

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

Will, Been, Which

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, About, Abstraction

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, Memory, Perfect

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

Leader, Take, Being A Leader

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

Always, Surrounded, Very

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

Smiling, Always, Everybody

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