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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.

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
Thinking
Name
Names
Away
Correctness
Political
Define
Power
Revolutionary
Able
Debate
Really
Defined
Think
Taking

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The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things.
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Grab this land! Take it, hold it, my brothers, make it, my brothers, shake it, squeeze it, turn it, twist it, beat it, kick it, kiss it, whip it, stomp it, dig it, plow it, seed it, reap it, rent it, buy it, sell it, own it, build it, multiply it, and pass it on — can you hear me? Pass it on!
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...when the little boy discovered, at four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier -- that only birds and planes could fly -- he lost all interest in himself.
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Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
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Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.
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It would be ten years before they saw each other again, and their meeting would be thick with birds.
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I guess I'm depressed. I don't know. I can't explain it. Part of it is the irritability of being 84, and part of it is being not as physically strong as I once was. And part of it is my misunderstanding, I think, of what's going on in the world.
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Who's Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Lion or the Mouse? Poppy or the Snake?
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Books ARE a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.
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A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.
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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.
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I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are at their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?
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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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There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.
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Think of anybody - Dostoevsky or Jane Austen - [their work] was always something that now we would call political. So I don't see those separations too much, between what is artistic and what is political. Maybe in painting... no, I don't even believe that.
Toni Morrison
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I don't do the things other people call play.
Toni Morrison
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guileless and without vanity,we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our own skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness.
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Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances.
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The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason.
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Intimacy is extremely important to me and I want it to be extremely important to the readers.
Toni Morrison