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Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison Quotes

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Famous Toni Morrison Quotes

“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.”

PeopleKnowsSelfCountryFallBornForgetCitiesForeverStreetsMinutesStrongerTrainFalling In LoveWideStationsGlimpseLampsLightingFerryTrain Stations
Author:Toni Morrison
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“Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." [Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]”

PeopleThinkingNeedsDoneUseFeelingsInterestingEmotionSkillsAngerPassionateRadioAbsenceBelovedInterviewsHostSeptemberHelpless
Author:Toni Morrison
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“You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”

IfsWantGivingShouldHumansMeanLittlesDoeWholeHandsValuesFallGirlLosesHuman BeingsWalksDoorsWhole LifeSelf WorthFalling ApartWithout YouValue Yourself
Book:Song Of Solomon
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“It hit her like a sledgehammer, and it was then that she knew what to feel. A liquid trail of hate flooded her chest. Knowing that she would hate him long and well filled her with pleasant anticipation, like when you know you are going to fall in love with someone and you wait for the happy signs. Hating BoyBoy, she could get on with it, and have the safety, the thrill, the consistency of that hatred as long as she wanted or needed it to define and strengthen her or protect her from routine vulnerabilities.”

KnowsFeelsWellsLongWantedHateFallWaitingKnowingNeededProtectHatredSafetyFilledFalling In LoveVulnerabilityPleasantChestsRoutineAnticipationConsistencyThrillTrailsLiquidHate Him
Book:Sula
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“They held hands and knew that only the coffin would lie in the earth; the bubbly laughter and the press of fingers in the palm would stay aboveground forever. At first, as they stood there, their hands were clenched together. They relaxed slowly until during the walk back home their fingers were laced in as gentle a clasp as that of any two young girlfriends trotting up the road on a summer day wondering what happened to butterflies in the winter.”

FirstsTwoHomeHandsEarthTogetherYoungLyingWalksWonderForeverHappenedSummerLaughterPressesFingersWinterGentleGirlfriendButterflyPalmsRelaxedBack HomeCoffinsSummer DaysTrotting
Book:Sula
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“But Jude,' she would say, 'you knew me. All those days and years, Jude, you knew me. My ways and my hands and how my stomach folded and how we tried to get Mickey to nurse and how about that time when the landlord said...but you said...and I cried, Jude. You knew me and had listened to the things I said in the night, and heard me in the bathroom and laughed at my raggedy girdle and I laughed too because I knew you too, Jude. So how could you leave me when you knew me?”

WayYearsSaidHandsNightHeardMy WayStomachLaughedNurseCriedBathroomLeaving MeMickeyLandlordGirdles
Book:Sula: a Novel
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“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.”

IfsSelfHandsTurnsLoversDecidedMoodNakedVersionsIntimateReach OutWhimComrade
Book:Sula
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“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. For loneliness assumed the absence of other people, and the solitude she found in that desperate terrain had never admitted the possibility of other people. She wept then. Tears for the deaths of the littlest things: the castaway shoes of children; broken stems of marsh grass battered and drowned by the sea; prom photographs of dead women she never knew; wedding rings in pawnshop windows; the tiny bodies of Cornish hens in a nest of rice.”

PeopleChildrenBodyFoundSilenceSeaLonelinessPossibilityTearsBrokenSolitudeWindowEternityProfoundPhotographShoesAbsenceTinyRingsGrassDesperateStemRiceNestsPromTerrainHensBatteredMarshesWedding RingCastaway
Book:Sula
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“When she awoke there was a melody in her head she could not identify or recall ever hearing before. 'Perhaps I made it up,' she thought. Then it came to her - the name of the song and all its lyrics just as she had heard it many times before. She sat on the edge of the bed thinking, 'There aren't any more new songs and I have sung all the ones there are. I have sung them all. I have sung all the songs there are.”

ThinkingMadeSongNamesHeardBedEdgesHearingMade ItSatMelodyRecallsNew Songs
Book:Sula
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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.”

KindSpecialMy SisterBrothers And SistersSiblingSisterSisterhoodMy SiblingsSiblings SistersCute SiblingOther SisterSiblings BrothersSiblings Sisters And BrothersBaby SisterFunny Brother And SisterCute Brother And SisterFunny SiblingFunny SisterSisters FriendshipCute Brother SisterCute SisterhoodCute SisterInspirational SisterhoodFunny SisterhoodInspirational SisterSister FriendRakhiSibling InspirationalYounger Siblings
Author:Toni Morrison
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“Here I am not the one to throw out. No one steals my warmth and shoes because I am small. No one handles my backside. No one whinnies like sheep or goat because I drop in fear and weakness. No one screams at the sight of me. No one watches my body for how it is unseemly. With you my body is pleasure is safe is belonging. I can never not have you have me.”

I CanBodyPleasureWatchesSafeWeaknessSightShoesStealingHandleBelongingWarmthScreamSheepGoatsHere I AmBacksides
Author:Toni Morrison
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“But maybe a man was nothing but a man, which is what Baby Suggs always said. They encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely that was, they studied your scars and tribulations, after which they did what he had done: ran her children out and tore up the house. [...] A man ain't nothing but a man,' said Baby Suggs. 'But a son? Well now, that's somebody.”

MenLoveWellsChildrenSaidDoneHandsLightAgeHouseFeltSonBabyWeightLovelyRanScarTribulation
Author:Toni Morrison
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“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.”

IfsWellsChildrenLittlesUsedNextLeftBitsDangerousLittle BitSlaveUsed To BeBrokeBest ThingsBelovedThe Next OneLittle Love
Author:Toni Morrison
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“In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous.”

WayArtMightFormArtistImaginationHalfDangerousDisciplineActivityConsequencePaintCuriosityMetaphorStringsIdleEquationsClayCravingOther HalfWhimRestlessnessPreoccupationStrangeness
Author:Toni Morrison
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“She left me the way people leave a hotel room. A hotel room is a place to be when you are doing something else. Of itself it is of no consequence to one's major scheme. A hotel room is convenient. But its convenience is limited to the time you need it while you are in that particular town on that particular business; you hope it is comfortable, but prefer, rather, that it be anoymous. It is not, after all, where you live.”

PeopleWayLifeNeedsLeftRoomsParticularComfortableMajorsConsequenceTownsHotelSchemesConvenienceConvenientHotel RoomsWhere You LiveShe Left Me
Author:Toni Morrison
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“In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs. And in the morning, long before she was fully awake, she felt a longing so bitter and tight it yanked her out of a sleep swept clean of dreams.”

HeartLongFactsDreamNightPassionFeltSleepMorningBloodBedBeatsLongingCleanRaisedAffectionBitterMaturityAwakeAfflictionFistsFeverAnother DayRibsKinshipHeart Beat
Book:Sula
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“Nothing could be taken for granted. Women who loved you tried to cut your throat, while women who didn't even know your name scrubbed your back. Witches could sound like Katharine Hepburn and your best friend could try to strangle you. Smack in the middle of an orchid there might be a blob of jello and inside a Mickey Mouse doll, a fixed and radiant star.”

KnowsTryingMightNamesStarsSoundTakenCuttingMiddleGrantedFixedWitchThroatMiceDollsRadiantYour Best FriendTaken For GrantedSmackMickeyHepburnOrchidsJello
Author:Toni Morrison
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“Her mind traveled crooked streets and aimless goat paths, arriving sometimes at profundity, other times at the revelations of a three-year-old. Throughout this fresh, if common, pursuit of knowledge, one conviction crowned her efforts: ...she knew there was nothing to fear.”

IfsYearsMindSometimesThreeCommonEffortPathStreetsConvictionPursuitRevelationsThree YearsTraveledGoatsCrookedArrivingPursuit Of KnowledgeProfundityThree Year Olds
Book:Sula
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“And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.”

WellsIdeasLyingOrderStrongFantasySeeingHabitBravePatternsIntellectMaturityRevelationsAggressiveCompassionateThievesPoliteGrammarNot StrongOld IdeasSimulate
Book:The Bluest Eye
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