Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.
TONI MORRISONI didn’t want to speak for black people. I wanted to speak to and to be among. It’s us.
More Toni Morrison Quotes
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All important things are hard.
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At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.
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If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
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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.
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All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.
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For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.
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I type in one place, but I write all over the house.
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Make a difference about something other than yourselves.
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You have to be a little tough, and rely on yourself. And tell people ‘No’.
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Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.
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He can’t value you more than you value yourself.
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Anything dead coming back to life hurts.
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Being able to laugh got me through.
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Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boiled down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?
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Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.
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A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.
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Liberation means you don’t have to be silenced.
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It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.
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I didn’t want to speak for black people. I wanted to speak to and to be among. It’s us.
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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.
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Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.
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It was a fine cry – loud and long – but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.
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A dream is just a nightmare with lipstick.
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There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race – scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct, it has a social function, racism.
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Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.
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The function of freedom is to free someone else.
TONI MORRISON