Toni Morrison

"What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them."

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

"I'm a Midwesterner, and everyone in Ohio is excited. I'm also a New Yorker, and a New Jerseyan, and an American, plus I'm an African-American, and a woman. I know it seems like I'm spreading like algae when I put it this way, but I'd like to think of the prize being distributed to these regions and nations and races."

"Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet."

"All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.[Conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, PBS NewsHour, March 9, 1998]"

"She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind."

"All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was."

"Birth, life, and death― each took place on the hidden side of a leaf."

"The function of freedom is to free someone else."

"There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how."

"What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?"

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

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

"I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life."