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

Make a difference about something other than yourselves. Toni Morrison

Make A Difference, Difference, Something

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, Been, Must

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

Yourself, Self, Ownership, One Thing

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

Art, Black, Tolerance, Serious, Taught

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

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, Man, Woman, Good, Mind, I Am

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

Power, Trust, Think, Dream, You, Before

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, Views, How, Other

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

Pain, Words, Same, No Words

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

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

Work, Anger, Angry, Go, Things, Get

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, You, Need

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, Perfect, Trying

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, You, Just

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

American, White, Country, Everybody

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

Children, People, Earth, Scorned

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

First, Because, Wrote, Wanted, Read

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, You, Down, Someone, Own, Going

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

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, Measure, Meaning, Die

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, People, Violence, Black, Run, Take

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

Leader, Responsibility, Somebody, Take

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, White, You, Find, Minute

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, Always

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

Sky, Words, Moon, You, Choice, Say

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