Toni Morrison Quotes

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
What a woman. What a life.
TONI MORRISON

Life Woman
A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.
TONI MORRISON

Gift Life Mankind Necessary Work Writing
In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent. This is precisely the time when artists go to work.
TONI MORRISON

Artist Choose Silence Time Work
Something that is loved is never lost.
TONI MORRISON

Deep Inspirational Lost Love One Liner
You don’t have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.
TONI MORRISON

Love Self Respect Women Empowerment
Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.
TONI MORRISON

Angry Aware Love Presence Reality Worth
I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.
TONI MORRISON

Fall In Love Love One Liner Rose
If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.
TONI MORRISON

Black Lives Matter People Problem Racism Serious
Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn’t even interesting. I was more interesting than they were.
TONI MORRISON

Interesting Male Navigate Threat White
Love is never any better than the lover.
TONI MORRISON

Love Lover
You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.
TONI MORRISON

Freedom Inspirational Obligation Save
Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.
TONI MORRISON

Knowledge Language Limitation Oppressive Represent Violence
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
She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.
TONI MORRISON

Colour Horror Learning Loneliness She
You are your best thing.
TONI MORRISON

Couple Inspirational One Liner Positive Valentine
I didn’t want to speak for black people. I wanted to speak to and to be among. It’s us.
TONI MORRISON

Black Lives Matter People Speak Want
I’ve spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.
TONI MORRISON

Book Dominant Life Spend Try White Writing
Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
TONI MORRISON

Belong Business Defination Inspirational
Lonely was much better than alone.
TONI MORRISON

Alone Loneliness One Liner Sad
Anything dead coming back to life hurts.
TONI MORRISON

Come Back Dead Deep Hurt Life
I type in one place, but I write all over the house.
TONI MORRISON

House Place Writing
There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.
TONI MORRISON

Amount Black Lives Matter Magic Men
Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.
TONI MORRISON

Disperate Mystery Problem Sweet Thinking Writing
There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
TONI MORRISON

Difficult Except Handle Inspirational Refuge
I get angry about things, then go on and work.
TONI MORRISON

Angry Work
When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.
TONI MORRISON

Broken Heart Pain Sad Suffering

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