Toni Morrison, was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. Morrison was not afraid to comment on American politics and race relations. Hope, our collection of Toni Morrison Quotes will inspire you to free yourself from everything that holds you back.
The function of freedom is to free someone else.
– Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison Quotes
1. “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” – Toni Morrison
2. “No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity.” – Toni Morrison
3. “If you surrender to the wind you can ride it.” – Toni Morrison
4. “Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.” – Toni Morrison
5. “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
6. “What’s the world for you if you can’t make it up the way you want it?” – Toni Morrison
7. “How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.” – Toni Morrison
8. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison
9. “At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.” – Toni Morrison
10. “Love is never any better than the lover.” – Toni Morrison
11. “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” – Toni Morrison
12. “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.” – Toni Morrison
13. “Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.” – Toni Morrison
14. “If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have serious problem.” – Toni Morrison
15. “Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself.” – Toni Morrison
16. “When good people take you in and treat you good, you ought to try to be good back.” – Toni Morrison
17. “Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don’t get nothing for it.” – Toni Morrison
18. “As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.” – Toni Morrison
19. “A dream is just a nightmare with lipstick.” – Toni Morrison
20. “Something that is loved is never lost.” – Toni Morrison
21. “When I woke up I reminded myself that freedom is never free. You have to fight for it. Work for it and make sure you are able to handle it. Now.” – Toni Morrison
22. “Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.” – Toni Morrison
23. “Correct what you can; learn from what you can’t.” – Toni Morrison
24. “Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.” – Toni Morrison
25. “Everything depends on knowing how much… Good is knowing when to stop.” – Toni Morrison
26. “But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer.” – Toni Morrison
27. “I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get.” – Toni Morrison
28. “The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.” – Toni Morrison
29. “A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.” – Toni Morrison
30. “What a man leaves behind is what a man is.” – Toni Morrison
31. “The human body is robust. It can gather strength when it’s in mortal danger.” – Toni Morrison
32. “Definitions belong to the definers—not the defined.” – Toni Morrison
33. “If you can’t imagine it, you can’t have it.” – Toni Morrison
34. “You can do some rather extraordinary things if that’s what you really believe.” – Toni Morrison
35. “Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.” – Toni Morrison
36. “Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.” – Toni Morrison
37. “I’m a believer in the power of knowledge and the ferocity of beauty, so from my point of view, your life is already artful—waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.” – Toni Morrison
38. “Don’t let anybody, anybody convince you this is the way the world is and therefore must be. It must be the way it ought to be.” – Toni Morrison
39. “When fear rules, obedience is the only survival choice.” – Toni Morrison
40. “Today is always here… Tomorrow, never.” – Toni Morrison
