“ A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
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“ Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
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“ 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- Copy
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“ Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
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“ If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
“ 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- Copy
“ 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- Copy
“ Birth, life, and death – each took place on the hidden side of a leaf. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 3.3K
“ As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 2.3K
“ Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 659
“ Don’t ever think I feel for you, or feel over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 2.3K
“ 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- Copy
- 772
“ You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 3.1K
“ You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 2K
“ 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- Copy
- 447
“ Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 3.7K
“ You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 3.5K
“ Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn by practice and careful contemplations the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think Godcarefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won't mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 2K
“ In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liverlove it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your lifeholding womb and your lifegiving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 1.9K
“ Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to anotherphysical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. ”
- Toni Morrison- Copy
- 1.8K
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