Toni Quotes & Sayings

Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being outdoors surfaced frequently in those days. Every possibility of excess was curtailed with it. If somebody ate too much, he could end up outdoors. If somebody used too much coal, he could end up outdoors. People could gamble themselves outdoors, drink themselves outdoors. Sometimes mothers put their sons outdoors, and when that happened, regardless of what the son had done, all sympathy was with him. He was outdoors, and his own flesh had done it. To be put outdoors by a landlord was one thing - unfortunate, but an aspect of life over which you had no control, since you could not control your income. But to be slack enough to put oneself outdoors, or heartless enough to put one's own kin outdoors - that was criminal. — Toni Morrison

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 Morrison

An artist represents an oppressed people and makes revolution irresistible. — Toni Cade Bambara

When you are miserable, stressed, doubtful and fearful you are in control. When you are happy, peaceful, confident and faithful God is in control. — Toni Sorenson

How can he not love your hair? It's the same hair that grows out of his own armpits. The same hair that crawls up out his crotch on up his stomach. All over his chest. The very same. It grows out of his nose, over his lips, and if he ever lost his razor it would grow all over his face. It's all over his head, Hagar. It's his hair too. He got to love it. — Toni Morrison

Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one. — Toni Morrison

Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth. — Toni Morrison

The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one. — Toni Morrison

Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. — Toni Morrison

Piper giggled. "Right! Man, that one guy, the one with no teeth, whoa! If he just kept his mouth shut the whole time, I could probably holler at him."
Audrey giggle as she shook her head. "Yeah, he is, but did you see Anderson? My God, Fallon was right, total eye candy. I could suck on him like a Blow Pop! — Toni Aleo

Wasn't there a tribe in Africa that lashed the dead body to the back of the one who had murdered it? That would certainly be justice - to carry the rotting corpse around as a physical burden as well as public shame and damnation. — Toni Morrison

I don't think one parent can raise a child. I don't think two parents can raise a child. You really need the whole village. — Toni Morrison

Poison is like the drowned; it always floats. — Toni Morrison

Love is divine only and difficult always. — Toni Morrison

It was a silly age, twenty-five; too old for teenaged dreaming, too young for settling down. Every corner was a possibility and a dead end. — Toni Morrison

I think love and friends are two things that you don't chase. True love and true friends come, — Toni Gonzaga

Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling - I don't think it's any of that - it's helpless ... it's absence of control - and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that - I have no use for it whatsoever.
[Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.] — Toni Morrison

Sethe, he says, "me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow."
He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. "You your best thing, Sethe, You are." His holding fingers are holding hers.
"Me? Me? — Toni Morrison

A woman sees a problem and sets about solving it, not analyzing it. — Toni Sorenson

You have pissed your last in this house ... and I don't make velvet roses anymore. — Toni Morrison

She shook her head from side to side, resigned to her rebellious brain. Why was there nothing it refused? No misery, no regret, no hateful picture too rotten to accept? Like a greedy child it snatched up everything. Just once, could it say, No thank you? I just ate and can't hold another bite? I am full — Toni Morrison

124 WAS SPITEFUL. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For — Toni Morrison

I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it's just my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. [...] What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. [...] Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it's you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It's when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else. — Toni Morrison

It was becoming a habit-this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had. *Milkman* — Toni Morrison

Only through Absolution will you reach the Absolute. — Toni Petrinovich

There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy--Normal mailer, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, William F. Buckley, Jr., Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers--that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you. — William Zinsser

I dream a dream that dreams back at me — Toni Morrison

You lose the arrogance you need to be successful, but you need that arrogance because the second someone sees that side of you and chip at it, it's over. — Toni Braxton

What makes you feel most alive? That is the thing you should be doing over and over again and again. — Toni Sorenson

Success demands a price that only a few are willing to pay ... blood, flesh, time, money, pride, heartbreak and energy. Anyone who has ever succeeded has the battle scars to prove the sacrifices they've made. — Toni Sorenson

124 was spiteful. Full of baby's venom — Toni Morrison

If I hadn't trained Lula Ann properly she wouldn't have known to always cross the street and avoid white boys. — Toni Morrison

a day without a disaster would be a day in someone else's life. - Bobbie Faye — Toni McGee Causey

I can never not have you have me. — Toni Morrison

Well, feel this, why don't you? Feel how it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how that feels. And if that don't get it, feel how it feels to be a colored woman roaming the roads with anything God made liable to jump on you. Feel that. — Toni Morrison

I am nothing to you. You say I am wilderness. I am. Is that a tremble on your mouth, in your eye? Are you afraid? You should be. — Toni Morrison

A man ain't a goddamn axe, choppin', hackin', bustin' every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can't chop down, because they inside. — Toni Morrison

From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art. — Toni Morrison

Tears do not signal your weakness. Tears testify that you are alive. — Toni Sorenson

Everything depends on knowing how much," she said, and "Good is knowing when to stop. — Toni Morrison

The concept of physical beauty as a virtue is one of the dumbest, most pernicious and destructive ideas of the Western world, and we should have nothing to do with it. — Toni Morrison

Let them see you cry. Let them see you sweat. Let them see you bleed. Those three drops make you human. Never fear to show your humanity. It's the bravest act of all. — Toni Sorenson

You can't say something like that and then expect me to be okay. I want to climb up your body and hump your face, not go to some party. Sheesh. — Toni Aleo

They were believed and trusted, but most of all they were listened to. — Toni Morrison

What makes you different is the exact thing that makes you irreplaceable. — Toni Sorenson

I'll be damned if I want most folks out there to do unto me what they do unto themselves. — Toni Cade Bambara

There is honey in this land sweeter than any I know of, and I have cut cane in places where the dirt itself tasted like sugar, so that's saying a heap. — Toni Morrison

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous. — Toni Morrison

Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? ... The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head high, free. — Toni Morrison

Rock bottom demands we pay a price for the ride back to the top. — Toni Sorenson

Sula was wrong. Hell ain't things lasting forever. Hell is change. Not only did men leave and children grow up and die, but even the misery didn't last. One day she wouldn't even have that. This very grief that had twisted her into a curve on the floor and flayed her would be gone. She would lose that too.
Why, even in hate here I am thinking of what Sula said. — Toni Morrison

So what if you're scared spitless? So what if you're intimidated, insecure or inundated with doubt? If it's the thing that will advance you, do it anyway. Forward movement always begins with an inward decision. — Toni Sorenson

the sun is shining and so shall you. — Toni Aleo

An accent in a way can be an entry into a character. — Toni Collette

Black people's music is in a class by itself and always has been. There's nothing like it. The reason for that is because it was not tampered with by white people. It was not on the media. It was not anywhere except where black people were. And it is one of the art forms in which black people decided what is good in it. Nobody told them. What surfaced and what floated to the top, were the giants and the best. — Toni Morrison

When good people take you in and treat you good, you ought to try to be good back. — Toni Morrison

I'm not a diva. I'm a tadpole trying to be a frog. — Toni Braxton

Well, thanks for the warning, Officer Flannel, but I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself - thankyouverymuch. — Toni Blake

When your resources are focused on what has been you cannot create all that can still be. — Toni Sorenson

Never be afraid to share your story. No one can tell it like you can. — Toni Sorenson

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers. — Toni Morrison

The idea of a wanton woman is something I have inserted into almost all of my books. An outlaw figure who is disallowed in the community because of her imagination or activity or status - that kind of anarchic figure has always fascinated me. — Toni Morrison

Their drift away from others produced a selfish privacy and they had lost the refuge and the consolation of a clan. Baptists, Presbyterians, tribe, army, family, some encircling outside thing was needed. Pride, she thought. Pride alone made them think that they needed only themselves, could shape life that way, like Adam and Eve, like gods from nowhere beholden to nothing except their own creations. She should have warned them, but her devotion cautioned against impertinence. As long as Sir was alive it was easy to veil the truth: that they were not a family-not even a like-minded group. They were orphans, each and all. — Toni Morrison

At the end of the day have you been kind to a stranger, learned something new, cherished something old, hugged yourself and accomplished something that made you smile? If so, it has been a very good day indeed. — Toni Sorenson

The function, the very serious function of racism 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 you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing. — Toni Morrison

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race
scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct ... it has a social function, racism. — Toni Morrison

I'm telling you, go hook up. It isn't like you'll ever see him again. Fun Florida Fling. Ha-ha, the three Fs!" I want to laugh, but I shake my head. "No way. That's all I need. To have sex, get pregnant or get an STD, or worse, catch feelings for the dude. He's obviously a player. — Toni Aleo

Like many of us left here I thought I knew you. Now I discover that in your company it is myself I know. That is the astonishing gift of your art and your friendship: You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish. — Toni Morrison

The best thing she was, was her children. — Toni Morrison

Training is the word we use now. To train means to teach a particular skill over a period of time. Every time you get up, show up, work out, you are training yourself to be better, to live happier and healthier. Don't expect results in a snap. Remember, change takes however long it takes. — Toni Sorenson

Her heavy knives of defense against misery, regret, gall and hurt, she placed one by one on a bank where dear water rushed on below. — Toni Morrison

You are not your emotions and they are not who you are, only how you feel at the moment. — Toni Sorenson

I think long and carefully about what novels ought to do. They should clarify the roles that have become obscured; they ought to identify those things in the past that are useful and those things that are not; and they ought to give nourishment. — Toni Morrison

I just want a friend who "gets" me and then wants to keep me - flaws and all. — Toni Sorenson

But the important thing is that I don't do anything else. I avoid social life normally associated with publishing. I don't go to the cocktail parties, I don't give or go to dinner parties. I need that time in the evening because I can do a tremendous amount of work then. And I can concentrate. When I sit down to write I never brood. I have so many other things to do, with my children and teaching, that I can't afford it ... — Toni Morrison

When they fall in love with a city, it is for forever and it is like forever. — Toni Morrison

The day Stamp Paid saw the two backs through the window and then hurried down the steps, he believed the undecipherable language clamoring around the house was the mumbling of the black and angry dead. Very few had died in bed, like Baby Suggs, and none that he knew of, including Baby, had lived a livable life. Even the educated colored: the long-school people, the doctors, the teachers, the paper-writers and businessmen had a hard row to hoe. In addition to having to use their heads to get ahead, they had the weight of the whole race sitting there. You needed two heads for that. Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. — Toni Morrison

Sylvia Day delivers readers to a fantasy world as unique as it is erotic! Ms. Day is an up-and-coming talent in the world of erotic fiction. [on Pleasures of the Night ] — Toni Blake

Tough shit, buddy. Your tough shit... — Toni Morrison

Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader. — Toni Morrison

Knowing ourselves is knowing our worth in the eyes of God. That's why the number one thought we cannot fail to think and believe is that He loves us. Always. No matter what. — Toni Sorenson

She banged her knuckles until they ached to get the attention of the living flesh behind the glass, and would have smashed her fist through the window just to touch him, feel his heat, the only thing that could protect her from a smothering death of dry roses. — Toni Morrison

Your brain processes a thought while your mind creates and cultivates not only your thoughts, but also the knowledge and experiences you gain. — Toni Sorenson

You are luck our baby is coming down those stairs. Because if he wasn't, I would have you bent over this sink, tearing you apart to the point where you wouldn't even be able to walk tomorrow. — Toni Aleo

They laughed too, even Rose Dear shook her head and smiled, and suddenly the world was right side up. Violet learned then what she had forgotten until this moment: that laughter is serious. More complicated, more serious than tears. — Toni Morrison

I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. — Toni Morrison

If you can't count, they can cheat you. If you can't read, they can beat you. — Toni Morrison

We humans have two things that set us apart and make us able to do what no other form of life can - reason and feel. That's because we have brains and hearts. — Toni Sorenson

Words can be arrows that inflict wounds. They can also be bandages that heal. — Toni Sorenson

Trades are happening, and I have two players that if they don't get their crap together I'm going to castrate them."

He took in a sharp breath. "Don't castrate my teammates, sweetheart, it will affect how they play. — Toni Aleo

He relished never knowing what lay in his path, who might approach with what intention. — Toni Morrison

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough. — Toni Morrison

You have to be willing to think the unthinkable. — Toni Morrison

I learned that I had to believe in myself and not just to be comfortable with the opinions of others. I'm just more in control; I finalize everything. — Toni Braxton

We mothers can testify that it is impossible to completely control a child. It's like trying to steer a cat. Toni sorenson — Toni Sorenson

before Reese could hit play, a knock came at the door. Reese looked over, ready to yell at whoever was at the door, but tat didn't happen. Instead, her heart kicked into gear and her nipples hardened as one hell of a gorgeous man came through the door with a careless grin on his face. She had no clue who the guy was, but she wanted to know him naked. — Toni Aleo

We don't need any more writers as solitary heroes. We need a heroic writer's movement: assertive, militant, pugnacious. — Toni Morrison

I like marriage. The idea. — Toni Morrison

One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to. — Toni Morrison

When God holds the Crayons you can expect a masterpiece. — Toni Sorenson