Quotes by Toni Morrison

About Toni Morrison:

Toni Morrison is an American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon and Beloved. She was also commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner, first performed in 2005. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for Beloved and the Nobel Prize in 1993. On May 29, 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Morrison serves as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison

Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.

Toni Morrison

Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

Toni Morrison

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

Toni Morrison

I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.

Toni Morrison

I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.

Toni Morrison

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

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

Toni Morrison

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.

Toni Morrison

Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.

Toni Morrison

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

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

Toni Morrison

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

Toni Morrison

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

Toni Morrison

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.

Toni Morrison

Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable.

Toni Morrison

You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?

Toni Morrison

Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth.

Toni Morrison

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.

Toni Morrison

One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.

Toni Morrison

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.

Toni Morrison

Author Bio

  • NameToni Morrison
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornFebruary 18, 1931
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Librettist
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature; Knight Of The Legion Of Honour; Commandeur Des Arts Et Des Lettres?; Norman Mailer Prize; National Humanities Medal; The Nichols-Chancellor's Medal