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
father men thinking
It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.
real father thinking
I don't think I knew any of my father's friends - male friends - by their real names. I remember them only by their nicknames.
children father men
My father saw two black men lynched on his street in Cartersville, as a child. And I think seeing two black businessmen - not vagrants - hanging from trees as a child was traumatic for him.
father names perfect
I remember a very important lesson that my father gave me when I was twelve or thirteen. He said, "You know, today I welded a perfect seam and I signed my name to it." And I said, "But, Daddy, no one's going to see it!" And he said, "Yeah, but I know it's there." So when I was working in kitchens, I did good work.
mother children father
It's always seemed to me that black people's grace has been with what they do with language. In Lorrain, Ohio, when I was a child, I went to school with and heard the stories of Mexicans, Italians, and Greeks, and I listened. I remember their language, and a lot of it is marvelous. But when I think of things my mother or father or aunts used to say, it seems the most absolutely striking thing in the world.
bit claimed claiming freed freeing ownership self
Bit by bit . . . she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
cent designed dose education eighty liberal per useful work
Bryn Mawr had done what a four-year dose of liberal education was designed to do: unfit her for eighty per cent of useful work of the world.
almost amused comic list mindful regarding
I have my own list of objections that I can peruse at my leisure, not least of which is an almost comic obtuseness regarding women, ... generous; impractical; often wrong; always engaged; mindful of, and often amused by, his own power.
fear boys black
Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.
jobs freedom real
I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.
book written
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.
book written
If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it
artist became
And like any artist with no art form, she became dangerous.
close friend woman
The loneliest woman in the world is the woman without a close woman friend