Toni Morrison — People

A green-and-white miniature house with a red front door stands beside pastel blocks and small potted plants. — Original artwork

Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty.

Toni Morrison

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

Toni Morrison

A white feather floats above a shallow hand-shaped ceramic dish against a pale blue background. — Original artwork

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

Toni Morrison

Three wooden blocks stand beside two block halves joined by a brass rod on a pale surface against teal. — Original artwork

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

Toni Morrison

Painterly cracked pale blue egg resting in a dark twig nest. — Original artwork

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

Toni Morrison

A pearl necklace drapes across a gray feather beside a dried sprig on a sunlit windowsill. — Original artwork

Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.

Toni Morrison

A small figure holding an amber lantern beneath a large horned shadow on a dark indigo wall. — Original artwork

What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?

Toni Morrison

Women’s rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about “us”; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

Toni Morrison

You need intelligence, and you need to look. You need a gaze, a wide gaze, penetrating and roving — that’s what’s useful for art.

Toni Morrison