More Quotes by Toni Morrison
In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.
I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge - even wisdom. Like art.
If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.
I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are.
All important things are hard.
You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human... And although you don't have complete control over the narrative - no author does, I can tell you - you could nevertheless create it.
Laughter is more serious than tears.
Racism will disappear when it's no longer profitable, and no longer psychologically useful. And when that happens, it'll be gone. But at the moment, people make a lot of money off of it, pro and con.
