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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

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Toni Morrison
Age: 88 †
Born: 1931
Born: February 18
Died: 2019
Died: August 5
Audiobook Narrator
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Lorain
Ohio
Chloe Ardelia Wofford
Chloe Anthony Wofford-Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford
Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison
Single
Statesmen
Sense
Solving
Problem
Literal
World
Unbelievable
Guns
Gun
Mandela
Truly
Statesman
Problems
Nelson

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You looked at me then like you knew me, and I thought it really was Eden, and I couldn't take your eyes in because I was loving the hoof marks on your cheeks.
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If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic.
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Everything depends on knowing how much,” she said, and “Good is knowing when to stop.
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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.
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What's interesting about writing is the invention, the creative thing. Writing about myself is a yawn.
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Something that is loved is never lost.
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What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.
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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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A dead hydrangea is as intricate and lovely as one in bloom. Bleak sky is as seductive as sunshine, miniature orange trees without blossom or fruit are not defective they are that.
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Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.
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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.
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Home is memory, home is your history, home is where you work. Some people want to abandon it and become truly local. But the questions are all there.
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The difference between that which is humane and that which is patriotic is a vital difference.
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Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.
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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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What's the world for you if you can't make it up the way you want it?
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The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know.
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When you stiffen, you know that whatever you stiffen about is very important. The stuff is important, the fear itself is information.
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You rely on a sentence to say more than the denotation and the connotation you revel in the smoke that the words send up.
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I sang O Holy Night in a school choir. My mother came and listened to me and complimented me. So that was the high point. I cannot sing a note.
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