Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrisonis an American novelist, editor, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth18 February 1931
CityLorain, OH
CountryUnited States of America
writing done world
Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.
writing house type
I type in one place, but I write all over the house.
sympathy pain suffering
When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.
country falling-in-love self
How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn't love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.
inspirational country mean
In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
smile people annoyed
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.
funny witty fun
I like marriage. The idea.
writing thinking vision
I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.
loneliness profound silence
There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning.
moving dark night
And talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain't. There're five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don't stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.
self hands naked
She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no one would ever be that version of herself which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.
air milkman ifs
If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
people exclusion racist
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.
reality lovely awareness
Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.