I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?' " 'The way I want it?' " 'Yeah. The way you want it. Don't you want it to be something more than what it is?' " 'What'st eh point? I can't change it.' " 'That's the point. If you don't, it will change you and it'll be your fault cause you let it. I let it. And messed up my life.' " 'Mess it up how?' " 'Forgot it.' " 'Forgot?' " 'Forgot it was mine. My life. I just ran up and down the streets wishing I was somebody else.
Toni MorrisonI'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.
Toni MorrisonAnd talking about dark! You think dark is just one color, but it ain't. There're five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don't stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.
Toni MorrisonI think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.
Toni MorrisonTwo parents can't raise a child any more than one. You need a whole community - everybody - to raise a child. And the little nuclear family is a paradigm that just doesn't work. It doesn't work for white people or for black people. Why are we hanging onto it, I don't know. It isolates people into little units - people need a larger unit.
Toni Morrison