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
If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression. Toni Morrison
It's been mentioned or suggested that Paradise will not be well studied, because it's about this unimportant intellectual topic, which is religion. 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
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
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
Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time. Toni Morrison
She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind. Toni Morrison
