50 Famous quotes and sayings by Toni Morrison. Here are the best Toni Morrison quotes that you can enjoy reading and will inspire you as well. Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, aka Toni Morrison, is a college professor, novelist, essayist, and book editor. Toni Morrison made many accomplishments and became known as one of the best authors who also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. May these Toni Morrison quotes and sayings help you get the inspiration and the motivation you need that can be useful in your everyday life. Share these famous Toni Morrison quotes with your friends, family, and loved ones.
1. You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. - Toni Morrison
2. If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. - Toni Morrison
3. Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow. - Toni Morrison
4. It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you. - Toni Morrison
5. There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how. - Toni Morrison
6. He wants to put his story next to hers. - Toni Morrison
7. As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. - Toni Morrison
8. If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. - Toni Morrison
9. What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not? - Toni Morrison
10. It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow. - Toni Morrison
11. She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. - Toni Morrison
12. Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. - Toni Morrison
13. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. - Toni Morrison
14. Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined. - Toni Morrison
15. At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough. - Toni Morrison
16. Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. - Toni Morrison
17. Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be. - Toni Morrison
18. The function of freedom is to free someone else. - Toni Morrison
19. We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom. - Toni Morrison
20. Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all. - Toni Morrison
21. 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
22. She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still. - Toni Morrison
23. Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet. - Toni Morrison
24. If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression. - Toni Morrison
25. The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over. - Toni Morrison
26. I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more. - Toni Morrison
27. What's the world for you if you can't make it up the way you want it? - Toni Morrison
28. I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man. - Toni Morrison
29. Not knowing it was hard; knowing it was harder. - Toni Morrison
30. But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer. - Toni Morrison
31. Perhaps that's what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it? - Toni Morrison
32. Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes. - Toni Morrison
33. You don't have to love me but you damn well have to respect me. - Toni Morrison
34. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love... You can't own a human being. - Toni Morrison
35. To be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing. - Toni Morrison
36. No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you. - Toni Morrison
37. No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity. - Toni Morrison
38. There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. - Toni Morrison
39. 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. - Toni Morrison
40. How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it. - Toni Morrison
41. Nowadays silence is looked on as odd and most of my race has forgotten the beauty of meaning much by saying little. Now tongues work all day by themselves with no help from the mind. - Toni Morrison
42. What you do to children matters. And they might never forget. - Toni Morrison
43. I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it. - Toni Morrison
44. Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light. - Toni Morrison
45. Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it. - Toni Morrison
46. I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got. - Toni Morrison
47. If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy. - Toni Morrison
48. For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction. - Toni Morrison
49. Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now. - Toni Morrison
50. I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it. - Toni Morrison
1. You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. - Toni Morrison
2. If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. - Toni Morrison
3. Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow. - Toni Morrison
4. It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you. - Toni Morrison
5. There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how. - Toni Morrison
6. He wants to put his story next to hers. - Toni Morrison
7. As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. - Toni Morrison
8. If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. - Toni Morrison
9. What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not? - Toni Morrison
10. It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow. - Toni Morrison
11. She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. - Toni Morrison
12. Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. - Toni Morrison
13. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. - Toni Morrison
14. Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined. - Toni Morrison
15. At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough. - Toni Morrison
16. Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. - Toni Morrison
17. Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be. - Toni Morrison
18. The function of freedom is to free someone else. - Toni Morrison
19. We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom. - Toni Morrison
20. Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all. - Toni Morrison
21. 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
22. She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still. - Toni Morrison
23. Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet. - Toni Morrison
24. If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression. - Toni Morrison
25. The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over. - Toni Morrison
26. I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more. - Toni Morrison
27. What's the world for you if you can't make it up the way you want it? - Toni Morrison
28. I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man. - Toni Morrison
29. Not knowing it was hard; knowing it was harder. - Toni Morrison
30. But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer. - Toni Morrison
31. Perhaps that's what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it? - Toni Morrison
32. Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes. - Toni Morrison
33. You don't have to love me but you damn well have to respect me. - Toni Morrison
34. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love... You can't own a human being. - Toni Morrison
35. To be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing. - Toni Morrison
36. No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you. - Toni Morrison
37. No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity. - Toni Morrison
38. There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. - Toni Morrison
39. 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. - Toni Morrison
40. How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it. - Toni Morrison
41. Nowadays silence is looked on as odd and most of my race has forgotten the beauty of meaning much by saying little. Now tongues work all day by themselves with no help from the mind. - Toni Morrison
42. What you do to children matters. And they might never forget. - Toni Morrison
43. I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it. - Toni Morrison
44. Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light. - Toni Morrison
45. Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it. - Toni Morrison
46. I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got. - Toni Morrison
47. If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy. - Toni Morrison
48. For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction. - Toni Morrison
49. Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now. - Toni Morrison
50. I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it. - Toni Morrison