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Oppressive language does more than represent violence it is violence does more than represent the limits of knowledge it limits knowledge.

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
Oppressive
Represent
Limits
Violence
Knowledge
Language
Black
Doe

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As a writer reading, I came to realize the obvious: the subject of the dream is the dreamer.
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I dream a dream that dreams back at me.
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Love is never any better than the lover.
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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.
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The function of freedom is to free someone else.
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Much handled things are always soft(27).
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Not knowing it was hard knowing it was harder
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Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.
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Gimme hate, Lord,” he whimpered. “I’ll take hate any day. But don’t give me love. I can’t take no more love, Lord. I can’t carry it...It’s too heavy. Jesus, you know, you know all about it. Ain’t it heavy? Jesus? Ain’t love heavy?
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An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
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I know what every colored woman in this country is doing... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.
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It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.
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There is really nothing more to say - except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
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Being able to laugh got me through.
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The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know.
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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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Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.
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This word LOVE - discredited, clicheed - can be restored and love, the instinct, the impulse to care for somebody in the hope that somebody will care for you - plus our language, the language, a language - is about all we have. With everything else going on, this is what makes us, what keeps us human.
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When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.
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