You have to be a little tough, and rely on yourself. And tell people ‘No’.
TONI MORRISONWe die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
More Toni Morrison Quotes
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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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When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else’s child, do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.
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I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.
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Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.
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He can’t value you more than you value yourself.
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I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer – its dust and lowering skies.
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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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You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.
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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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I get angry about things, then go on and work.
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Sometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don’t feel safe.
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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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Love is never any better than the lover.
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My theory is that the world is a difficult place to live in and distraction is the name of the game.
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Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.
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Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.
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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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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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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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Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
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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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Today is always here,’ said Sethe. ‘Tomorrow, never.
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Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.
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The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.
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She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.
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Lonely was much better than alone.
TONI MORRISON