All she saw, down in the cellar well beneath the stoop, was a light yellow feather with a tip of green. And she had never named him. Had called him "my parrot" all these years. "My parrot." "Love you. "Love you." Did the dogs get him? Or did he get the message - that she said, "My parrot" and he said, "Love you," and she had never said it back or even taken the trouble to name him - and manage somehow to fly away on wings that had not soared for six years.
Toni MorrisonHow soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn't love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.
Toni MorrisonI'm losing the definition now of politics. I sort of don't know what that is anymore. People say politically correct, I don't know what that means. I know what they think they mean.
Toni MorrisonIt's been mentioned or suggested that Paradise will not be well studied, because it's about this unimportant intellectual topic, which is religion.
Toni MorrisonHow come it canโt fly no better than a chicken?โ Milkman asked. Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Canโt nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.โ The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion.
Toni Morrison