I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are.
TONI MORRISONIn this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
More Toni Morrison Quotes
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You don’t have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.
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You are your best thing.
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Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake – otherwise it just walks on in your door.
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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.
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You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
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There’s a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises. If you write for life, you’ll work hard; you’ll do what’s honest, not what pays.
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Being able to laugh got me through.
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Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
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A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.
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You have to be a little tough, and rely on yourself. And tell people ‘No’.
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If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
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Love is never any better than the lover.
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The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.
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Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.
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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






