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Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took away all the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.
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
Away
Misery
Mother
Grief
Sweet
Took
Endurable
Voice
Greens
Words
Colored
Pain
Blues
Left
Conviction
More quotes by Toni Morrison
Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.
Toni Morrison
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.
Toni Morrison
In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.
Toni Morrison
Evil is just sort of ultimately boring. The good thing is just complicated. It's more provocative to me and more stimulating to me.
Toni Morrison
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
Toni Morrison
Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not, permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.
Toni Morrison
Which was what love was: unmotivated respect.
Toni Morrison
For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event.
Toni Morrison
Maybe [I care about language] because I'm an editor, maybe because I'm picky, but it's all we got, don't shrink it. Don't dumb it out, make it little.
Toni Morrison
A man ain't nothing but a man. But a son? Well, now, that's somebody.
Toni Morrison
What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us.
Toni Morrison
the hopelessness that comes from knowing too little and feeling too much (so brittle, so dry he is in danger of the reverse: feeling nothing and knowing everything)
Toni Morrison
A son ain't what a woman say. A son is what a man do.
Toni Morrison
Love is never any better than the lover.
Toni Morrison
The screams of a hurt woman were indistinguishable from everyday traffic.
Toni Morrison
Anything dead coming back to life hurts.
Toni Morrison
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.
Toni Morrison
Beloved, you are my sister, you are my daughter, you are my face you are me.
Toni Morrison
Well, feel this, why don't you? Feel how it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how that feels. And if that don't get it, feel how it feels to be a colored woman roaming the roads with anything God made liable to jump on you. Feel that.
Toni Morrison
The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know.
Toni Morrison