Quotes from Toni Morrison

Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this.

Much handled things are always soft(27).

She needed what most colored girls needed: a chorus of mamas, grandmamas, aunts, cousins, sisters, neighbors, Sunday school teachers, best girl friends, and what all to give her the strength life demanded of her—and the humor with which to live it.

Shallow believers prefer a shallow God.

It was lovely. Not to be stared at, not seen, but being pulled into view by the interested, uncritical eyes of the other.

Nobody loved her and she wouldn't have liked it if they had, she considered love a serious disability.

People who die bad don't stay in the ground.

I am nothing to you. You say I am wilderness. I am. Is that a tremble on your mouth, in your eye? Are you afraid? You should be.

A child. New life. Immune to evil or illness, protected from kidnap, beatings, rape, racism, insult, hurt, self-loathing, abandonment. Error-free. All goodness. Minus wrath. So they believe.

Every Saturday morning, first thing before breakfast, his parents held conferences with their children requiring them to answer two questions put to each of them: 1. What have you learned that is true (and how do you know)? 2. What problem do you have?

I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.

this is the it you've been looking for