Quotes from Toni Morrison

Loggers move on after they destroy a forest.

Struggling through the work is extremely important—more important to me than publishing it.

The deceased was the tragic hero, the survivors the innocent victims; there was the omnipresence of the deity, strophe and antistrophe of the chorus of mourners led by the preacher. There was grief over the waste of life, the stunned wonder at the ways of God, and the restoration of order in nature at the graveyard.

Some of them had to have Bible verses read to them because they could not decipher print themselves, so they had sharpened the skills of the illiterate: perfect memory, photographic minds, keen senses of smell and hearing.

Once they knew she had been working for a doctor, the eye rolling and tooth sucking was enough to make clear their scorn. And nothing Cee remembered—how pleasant she felt upon awakening after Dr. Beau had stuck her with a needle to put her to sleep; how passionate he was about the value of the examinations; how she believed the blood and pain that followed was a menstrual problem—nothing made them change their minds about the medical industry.

Gimme hate, Lord, he whimpered. I'll take hate any day. But don't give me love. I can't take no more love, Lord. I can't carry it. It's too heavy. Jesus, you know. You know all about it. Ain't it heavy? Jesus? Ain't love heavy? Don't you see, Lord? Your own son couldn't carry it. If it killed Him, what You think it's gonna do to me? Huh? Huh?

He habitually contrasted the beaten, penniless, half-naked King of the Jews screaming betrayal on a cross with the bejeweled, glamorously dressed pope whispering homilies above the Vatican's vault.

What are you? Some kinda mermaid?" one man had shouted, and reached hurriedly for his socks.

Jumping from the roof of Mercy was the most interesting thing he had done.

You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction.

Only one mirror has not been covered with chalky paint and that one the man ignores. He does not want to see himself stalking females or their liquid.

for one's language, the one we dream in, is home.