Toni Morrison

1931 - 2019

Toni Morrison was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for her literary works that explored African American culture and history. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 for her epic portrayal of the African American experience and was a pivotal figure in American literature.

We are already born. We are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.

PEOPLE, 1977

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.

Beloved, 1987

Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network.

Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation." In Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, edited by Mari Evans, p. 344. 1984

Failure is just information.

Source

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

Beloved, p. 261, 1987