Quote

The seeds of destruction lie in the definition of chosen-ness and can easily blossom into bigotry. It's not inevitable but it needs constant care to avoid.

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
Constant
Definition
Lying
Definitions
Care
Seeds
Needs
Inevitable
Chosen
Avoid
Ness
Easily
Blossom
Destruction
Bigotry

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Sweet, she thought. He must think I can't bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told him and after telling me how many feet I have, goodbye would break me to pieces. Ain't that sweet. So long, she murmured from the far side of the trees.
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Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.
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It was becoming a habit-this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had. *Milkman*
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A son ain't what a woman say. A son is what a man do.
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Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.
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No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along.
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In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.
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If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.
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Not knowing it was hard knowing it was harder
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Occasionally, as children, we might figure out how to call somebody a name, and they would figure out how to call us. But it wasn't - it was so light. It was so fluffy. I didn't really have a strong awareness of segregation and the separation of races until I left Lorain, Ohio.
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If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
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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 best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.
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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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I dream a dream that dreams back at me.
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[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time.
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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.
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The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no time to really read the book.
Toni Morrison
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Home is memory, home is your history, home is where you work. Some people want to abandon it and become truly local. But the questions are all there.
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Hospitality is gold in this City you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter.
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