More Quotes by Toni Morrison
Liberation means you don't have to be silenced.
Make a difference about something other than yourselves.
Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.
It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
Books ARE a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.
Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.