...the City is what they want it to be: thriftless, warm, scary and full of amiable strangers. No wonder they forget pebbly creeks and when they do not forget the sky completely think of it as a tiny piece of information about the time of day or night.
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 MorrisonGimme hate, Lord,โ he whimpered. โIโll take hate any day. But donโt give me love. I canโt take no more love, Lord. I canโt carry it...Itโs too heavy. Jesus, you know, you know all about it. Ainโt it heavy? Jesus? Ainโt love heavy?
Toni MorrisonWord-work is sublime... because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference-the way in which we are like no other life. We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
Toni MorrisonGrown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.
Toni MorrisonAt some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens โ that letting go โ you let go because you can.
Toni Morrison