Nobody loved her and she wouldn’t have liked it if they had, she considered love a serious disability.
Toni MorrisonShe is convinced that when language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem, or killed by fiat, not only she herself, but all users and makers are accountable for its demise. In her country children have bitten their tongues off and use bullets instead to iterate the voice of speechlessness, of disabled and disabling language, of language adults have abandoned altogether as a device for grappling with meaning, providing guidance, or expressing love.
Toni MorrisonIf you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.
Toni MorrisonSome literature is knowledge, some is just data. But if I can get a "happy" ending - which is when for the characters I'm writing about, something happens that they move from wherever they are in the beginning to knowledge or wisdom, they know something they never would have acknowledged or realized if it hadn't been for my book - that for me is what literature does.
Toni Morrison