To get to a place where you could love anything you chose – not to need permission for desire – well now that was freedom.
TONI MORRISONOppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.
More Toni Morrison Quotes
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Something that is loved is never lost.
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Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe.
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I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can’t teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.
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Freedom is choosing your responsibility. It’s not having no responsibilitie s; it’s choosing the ones you want.
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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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What’s the world for you if you can’t make it up the way you want it?
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You are your own stories.
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Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances.
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He wants to put his story next to hers.
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We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
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There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.
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The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things.
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All art is knowing when to stop.
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You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.
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Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.
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If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
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There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
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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.
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Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn’t even interesting. I was more interesting than they were.
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Being able to laugh got me through.
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I type in one place, but I write all over the house.
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A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.
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Today is always here,’ said Sethe. ‘Tomorrow, never.
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Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
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I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are.
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You are your best thing.
TONI MORRISON