Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
A man ain't nothing but a man. But a son? Well, now, that's somebody.
Toni Morrison
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Son
Somebody
Wells
Well
Nothing
Men
More quotes by Toni Morrison
Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.
Toni Morrison
To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.
Toni Morrison
I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are
Toni Morrison
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
Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.
Toni Morrison
There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises.... If you write for life, you'll work hard you'll do what's honest, not what pays
Toni Morrison
If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.
Toni Morrison
I am in the position of judging people by the best they've ever done rather than the worst.
Toni Morrison
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?
Toni Morrison
The language must be careful and must appear effortless. It must not sweat. It must suggest and be provocative at the same time.
Toni Morrison
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.
Toni Morrison
Isolation, you know, carries the seeds of its own destruction because as times change, other things seep in.
Toni Morrison
I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.
Toni Morrison
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.
Toni Morrison
It seems to me everything Shakespeare did was political.
Toni Morrison
Not knowing it was hard knowing it was harder
Toni Morrison
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
What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us.
Toni Morrison
Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence.
Toni Morrison
...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.
Toni Morrison
