Toni Morrison Quotes.
I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are
Racism will disappear when it’s no longer profitable, and no longer psychologically useful. And when that happens, it’ll be gone. But at the moment, people make a lot of money off of it, pro and con.
If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.
Everything I’ve ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.
Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.
Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.
In becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me-it’s nothing else but color.
I’m always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else’s contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we’re demons.
No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That’s a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything.
A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.
From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.
Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.
I don’t think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they’re black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That’s what we’re upset about.
When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else’s child, do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.
A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.
