Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression. "
Toni Morrison
End
You
Going
Related Quotes:
" Make a difference about something other than yourselves. "
Toni Morrison
Difference
Make A Difference
Something
" Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us. "
Toni Morrison
Personal
Equality
Me
" Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth. "
Toni Morrison
People
Scorned
Earth
" We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. "
Toni Morrison
Life
Measure
Die
" For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event. "
Toni Morrison
Media
Conflict
Time
" In becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me-it's nothing else but color. "
Toni Morrison
American
Color
Immigrant
" Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network. "
Toni Morrison
Rich
Money
People
" I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it. "
Toni Morrison
Wrote
First
Read
" My children are delightful people, whom I would love even if they weren't my children. "
Toni Morrison
Love
People
Delightful
" You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone. "
Toni Morrison
Child
Children
Community
" It's been mentioned or suggested that Paradise will not be well studied, because it's about this unimportant intellectual topic, which is religion. "
Toni Morrison
Religion
Will
Paradise
" I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons. "
Toni Morrison
Demons
Understanding
Black
" You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say? "
Toni Morrison
Sky
Say
Moon
" Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable. "
Toni Morrison
Single
Guns
Sense
" As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. "
Toni Morrison
You
Dream
Power
" If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. "
Toni Morrison
Book
You
Write
" She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind. "
Toni Morrison
Mind
Friendship
Good
" Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time. "
Toni Morrison
Long Time
Long
Time
" The body is ready to have babies. Nature wants it done then, when the body can handle it, not after 40, when the income can handle it. "
Toni Morrison
Handle
Done
Ready
" All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. "
Toni Morrison
Memory
Nature
Perfect
" There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how. "
Toni Morrison
More
Nothing
Why
" No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything. "
Toni Morrison
You
Moment
Find
" The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time; the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no time to really read the book. "
Toni Morrison
Painful
No Time
Book
" Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are. "
Toni Morrison
Dread
Because
Black
" I get angry about things, then go on and work. "
Toni Morrison
Work
Things
Angry
" Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form. "
Toni Morrison
Black
Art
Serious
" When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same. "
Toni Morrison
Same
No Words
Pain
" I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people. "
Toni Morrison
People
Insult
Always
" I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man. "
Toni Morrison
Family
Broken
Think
" In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. "
Toni Morrison
Everybody
White
Country