Top 500 Toni Morrison Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”

— Toni Morrison

102. “There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.”

— Toni Morrison

103. “This is precisely the time when artists go to work – not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!” Toni Morrison.”

— Toni Morrison

104. “The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things.”

— Toni Morrison

105. “There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.”

— Toni Morrison

106. “Liberation means you don’t have to be silenced.”

— Toni Morrison

107. “Let your face speak what’s in your heart. When my kids walk in the room my face says I’m glad to see them.”

— Toni Morrison

108. “Black women have always been friends. I mean, if you didn’t have each other you had nothing.”

— Toni Morrison

109. “Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.”

— Toni Morrison

110. “You are worthy to be seen. You are worthy to be heard. You are worthy to be sat with, to be walked beside. Even in your quietest moments, you are worthy of witness.”

— Toni Morrison

111. “All narrative begins for me as listening. When I read, I listen. When I write, I listen – for silence, inflection, rhythm, rest.”

— Toni Morrison

112. “It wasn’t a miracle. Bestowed by God. It was a mercy. Offered by a human.”

— Toni Morrison

113. “Love is divine only and difficult always.”

— Toni Morrison

114. “Movements toward freedom and the self-respect that comes from something other than what people think is their most important feature.”

— Toni Morrison

115. “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. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens – that letting go – you let go because you can.”

— Toni Morrison

116. “Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.”

— Toni Morrison

117. “I can’t explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn’t really be a writer.”

— Toni Morrison

118. “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.”

— Toni Morrison

119. “When you stiffen, you know that whatever you stiffen about is very important. The stuff is important, the fear itself is information.”

— Toni Morrison

120. “A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.”

— Toni Morrison

121. “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

122. “A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment.”

— Toni Morrison

123. “Black women are the touchstone by which all that is human can be measured.”

— Toni Morrison

124. “What’s the world for you if you can’t make it up the way you want it?”

— Toni Morrison

125. “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.”

— Toni Morrison

126. “Lay my head on the railroad line. Train come along; pacify my mind.”

— Toni Morrison

127. “Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”

— Toni Morrison

128. “Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.”

— Toni Morrison

129. “A dead hydrangea is as intricate and lovely as one in bloom. Bleak sky is as seductive as sunshine, miniature orange trees without blossom or fruit are not defective; they are that.”

— Toni Morrison

130. “Unless carefree, mother love was a killer.”

— Toni Morrison

131. “Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light.”

— Toni Morrison

132. “124 WAS SPITEFUL. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For.”

— Toni Morrison

133. “The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers.”

— Toni Morrison

134. “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

135. “There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.”

— Toni Morrison

136. “When I woke up I reminded myself that freedom is never free. You have to fight for it. Work for it and make sure you are able to handle it. Now.”

— Toni Morrison

137. “Correct what you can; learn from what you can’t.”

— Toni Morrison

138. “I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands.”

— Toni Morrison

139. “My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.”

— Toni Morrison

140. “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

141. “Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth.”

— Toni Morrison

142. “What a man leaves behind is what a man is.”

— Toni Morrison

143. “Sula never competed; she simply helped others define themselves.”

— Toni Morrison

144. “I wanted to separate color from race. Distinguishing color – light, black, in-between – as the marker for race is really an error.”

— Toni Morrison

145. “Laughter is more serious than tears.”

— Toni Morrison

146. “I don’t believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but they were political, because that’s what an artist is-a politician.”

— Toni Morrison

147. “You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.”

— Toni Morrison

148. “I thought the whole world was like Lorain.”

— Toni Morrison

149. “No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity.”

— Toni Morrison

150. “I couldn’t bear to have people mispronounce my name. But the person I was was this person who was called Chloe.”

— Toni Morrison