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 MORRISONIf 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 MORRISONBeauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.
TONI MORRISONAll paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.
TONI MORRISONLike any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.
TONI MORRISONDefinitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
TONI MORRISONBlack people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.
TONI MORRISONThe peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.
TONI MORRISONTo get to a place where you could love anything you chose – not to need permission for desire – well now that was freedom.
TONI MORRISONLiterature, it seems to me, is wisdom.
TONI MORRISONAs you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.
TONI MORRISONWe die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
TONI MORRISONThere is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.
TONI MORRISONThe best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.
TONI MORRISONDon’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.
TONI MORRISONYou don’t have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.
TONI MORRISONSometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don’t feel safe.
TONI MORRISON