"I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That's what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say 'people,' that's what I mean."
— Toni Morrison

"See? See what you can do? Never mind you can’t tell one letter from another, never mind you born a slave, never mind you lose your name, never mind your daddy dead, never mind nothing. Here, this here, is what a man can do if he puts his mind to it and his back in it. Stop sniveling,’ [the land] said. ‘Stop picking around the edges of the world. Take advantage, and if you can’t take advantage, take disadvantage. We live here. On this planet, in this nation, in this county right here. Nowhere else! We got a home in this rock, don’t you see! Nobody starving in my home; nobody crying in my home, and if I got a home you got one too! Grab it. Grab this land! Take it, hold it, my brothers, make it, my brothers, shake it, squeeze it, turn it, twist it, beat it, kick it, kiss it, whip it, stomp it, dig it, plow it, seed it, reap it, rent it, buy it, sell it, own it, build it, multiply it, and pass it on – can you hear me? Pass it on!"
— Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)

"‘How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked.

‘Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’

The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion."
— Toni Morrison

"Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn't allowed to be and stay what I was [...] School teacher changed me. I was something else and that something else was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub. (Paul D.)"
— Toni Morrison (Beloved)

"It's been years since I tried to count the stars. I spent a lot of long teenage nights staring up there trying to count them. I needed to know their number. I remember waiting until the whole house was quiet, until my parents' soft voices in the room next to mine had stopped. I remember sneaking out the window in my nightie, no slippers on my feel, and lying down in the middle of the lawn. It was cold but I didn't care. I would stare at the sky, but the fucking things move. I tried to imagine the sky as a grid, drawing lines from objects on the ground. I tried scanning it with an aluminum-foil tube. I tried everything. Nothing works."
— Toni Jordan (Addition)

"I have always been a slow eater. I give each mouthful the attention it deserves. Chew each mouthful 30 times, they say, and you'll never be sick. I've never been sick a day in my life."
— Toni Jordan (Addition)

"When I first seed Cholly, I want you to know it was like all the bits of color from that time down home when all us chil'ren went berry picking after a funeral and I put some in the pocket of my Sunday dress, and they mashed up and stained my hips. My whole dress was messed with purple, and it never did wash out. Not the dress nor me. I could feel that purple deep inside me. And that lemonade Mama used to make when Pap came in out the fields. It be cool and yellowish, with seeds floating near the bottom. And that streak of green them june bugs made on the trees the night we left from down home. All of them colors was in me. Just sitting there. So when Cholly come up and tickled my foot, it was like them berries, that lemonade, them streaks of green the june bugs made, all come together. Cholly was thin then, with real light eyes. He used to whistle, and when I heerd him, shivers come on my skin."
— Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)

"Well, it probably won't live. They say the way her mama beat her she lucky to be alive herself.

She be lucky if it don't live. Bound to be the ugliest thing walking.

Can't help but be. Ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground.

Well, I wouldn't worry none. It be a miracle if it live.""
— Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)

"In my own single bed, I know. I know its width and length in hand spans and kicks and there is no spot so far from my body that it cannot feel the heat of my blood. A double bed is a dare, a question. A single bed is complete with just me in it. A double bed is a vacant promise. A threatening Miss Havisham. The thought of having one in my house makes my lower back ache. I wouldn't know how to lie in it."
— Toni Jordan (Addition)

"He gives me all his numbers and writes mine down on a tram ticket. I am listening hard, but he doesn't say "I'll call you.""
— Toni Jordan (Addition)

"4 is the worst time to wake up, as anyone with the normal human sensitivities will tell you. Far too late to make a cup of tea or go back to sleep. Far too early to get up and do something constructive. There's nothing on television but arrogant evangelists and people selling acne solutions and motivational tapes. For me, base 12 philosophy aside, midnight is not the witching hour. 4:00 is."
— Toni Jordan (Addition)

"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. "
— Toni Morrison

"freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another."
— Toni Morrison

"Did you hear about that girl?

What? Pregnant?

Yes. But guess who?

Who? I don't know all these little old boys.

That's just it. Ain't no little old boy. They say it's Cholly.

Cholly? Her Daddy?

Uh-huh.

Lord. Have mercy. That dirty nigger.

Member that time he tried to burn them up? I knew he was crazy for sure then.

What's she gone do? The mama?

Keep on like she been. I reckon. He taken off.

County ain't gone let her keep that baby, is they?

Don't know.

None of them Breedloves seem right anyhow. That boy is off somewhere every minute, and the girl was always foolish.

Don't nobody know nothing about them anyway. Where they come from or nothing. Don't seem to have no people.

What you reckon make him do a thing like that?

Beats me. Just nasty.

Well, they ought to take her out of school.

Ought to. She carry some of the blame.

Oh come on. She ain't but twelve or so.

Yeah, but you never know. How come she didn't fight him?

Maybe she did.

Yeah? You never know.

Well, it probably won't live. They say the way her mama beat her she lucky to be alive herself.

She be lucky if it don't live. Bound to be the ugliest thing walking.

Can't help but be. Ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground.

Well, I wouldn't worry none. It be a miracle if it live."
— Toni Morrison