Top 51 Quotes by Toni Morrison

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.

Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons.

Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.