I think one of the reasons I'm so thrilled with writing is because it is an act of reading for me at the same time, which is why my revisions are so sustained.
Toni MorrisonAlice thought, No. It wasn't the War and the disgruntled veterans; it wasn't the droves and droves of colored people flocking to paychecks and streets full of themselves. It was the music. The dirty, get-on-down music the women sang and the men played and both danced to, close and shamelesss or apart and wild...It made you do unwise disorderly things. Just hearing it was like violating the law.
Toni MorrisonDon't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.
Toni MorrisonWe die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
Toni MorrisonWhen am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay alive? What is true in the world?
Toni MorrisonAnd fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.
Toni Morrison