black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

All important things are hard.

Toni Morrison

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose – not to need permission for desire – well now that was freedom.
TONI MORRISON

Choose Freedom Love Permission Place
Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.
TONI MORRISON

Black Lives Matter Crime Live Racism Traget
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
TONI MORRISON

Claim Freedom Ownership Yourself
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
TONI MORRISON

Civilization Despair Fear Healing Language Silence Time Writing
There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.
TONI MORRISON

Art Beginning Civilization Dance Painting
Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boiled down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?
TONI MORRISON

Human Life Perhaps Relationship Save
From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.
TONI MORRISON

Chance Destiny Inspirational Life Miracle Shape Wait
Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.
TONI MORRISON

Black Lives Matter Country People Power Prevent War
It was a fine cry – loud and long – but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.
TONI MORRISON

Circle Cry Loud Sad Sorrow
In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
TONI MORRISON

Country White
Passion is never enough; neither is skill.
TONI MORRISON

Change Inspirtional Passion Skill
Racism will disappear when it’s no longer profitable, and no longer psychologically useful. And when that happens, it’ll be gone. But at the moment, people make a lot of money off of it, pro and con.
TONI MORRISON

Disappear Happen Money People Profit Psychology Racism
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
TONI MORRISON

Die Inspirational Language Life Live Measure
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 Reading Want
Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.
TONI MORRISON

Art Life Wait
I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer – its dust and lowering skies.
TONI MORRISON

Break Strawberry Summer

All important things are hard.

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All important things are hard.

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