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" Make a difference about something other than yourselves. "
Toni Morrison
Difference
Make A Difference
Something
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" As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. "
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" My children are delightful people, whom I would love even if they weren't my children. "
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" I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it. "
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" I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it. "
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" For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event. "
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" 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. "
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" At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. "
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" Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. "
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One Thing
" 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. "
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Personal
Equality
Me
" 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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Strange
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" 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. "
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You
Going
" 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. "
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Single
Guns
Sense
" 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
" A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people. "
Toni Morrison
Black
Believe
People
" There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people. "
Toni Morrison
Education
Black
Planning
" Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form. "
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Black
Art
Serious
" Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all. "
Toni Morrison
Thin
Love
Love Is
" Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader. "
Toni Morrison
Leader
Take
Responsibility
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort. "
Toni Morrison
Talent
Vision
Help
" In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. "
Toni Morrison
Everybody
White
Country
" I get angry about things, then go on and work. "
Toni Morrison
Work
Things
Angry
" I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway. "
Toni Morrison
Just
Problems
Thinking
" 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
" 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
" Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it. "
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Writing
World
Been
" 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? "
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Sky
Say
Moon
" 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. "
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Long Time
Long
Time