More Quotes by Toni Morrison
From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.
All important things are hard.
It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
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.
The function of freedom is to free someone else.
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.
In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.
The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.
Laughter is more serious than tears.
