Quote

One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.

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
Level
Brother
Difficulties
Levels
Contempt
Born
Exposed
Political
Brothers
Kids
Sister
Going
Difficulty
Never
Hatred

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There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.
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I know it's trash: just another story made up to scare wicked females and correct unruly children. But it's all I have. I know I need something else. Something better. Like a story that shows how brazen women can take a good man down. I can hum to that.
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Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.
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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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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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If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic....Authors arrive at text and subtext in thousands of ways, learning each time they begin anew how to recognize a valuable idea and how to reader the texture that accompanies, reveals or displays it to its best advantage.
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Beauty was not simply something to behold it was something one could do.
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I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.
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For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone the flowers appear on the earth the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
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What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.
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I tell my students there is such a thing as 'writer's block,' and they should respect it. You shouldn't write through it. It's blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven't got it right now.
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[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time.
Toni Morrison
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I know there's some poetry that sort of sounds like daisies, but most of the good poetry is also [political], you can feel the heartbeat it's about some situation that concerns human beings under duress. It's suggesting a solution, or just acknowledging that [the situation] exists. Art does that.
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Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.
Toni Morrison
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This is really skin privilege, the ranking of color in terms of its closeness to white people or white-skinned people and its devaluation according to how dark one is and the impact that has on people who are dedicated to the privileges of certain levels of skin color.
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I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.
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Everything depends on knowing how much,” she said, and “Good is knowing when to stop.
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Which was what love was: unmotivated respect.
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In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
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We're all surrounded by what I call faux language, fake language of commerce, of news media.
Toni Morrison