Toni Morrison Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

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

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude

• Books ARE a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Reflection, Political

  Source: wordmag.com

• In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book -- leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, a little ambiguity.

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Writing, Doors

• The unflattering reviews are painful for short periods of time; the badly written ones are deeply, deeply insulting. That reviewer took no time to really read the book.

  Toni Morrison

  Pain, Book, Insulting

• A bestseller is a book that non-book buyers buy

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Buyers

• And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.

  Toni Morrison

  Dream, Book, Wine

• Some literature is knowledge, some is just data. But if I can get a "happy" ending - which is when for the characters I'm writing about, something happens that they move from wherever they are in the beginning to knowledge or wisdom, they know something they never would have acknowledged or realized if it hadn't been for my book - that for me is what literature does.

  Toni Morrison

  Moving, Book, Character

  Source: theharvardadvocate.com

• I know that my books are worthy, which is separate from me.

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Worthy, Knows

• There are some very powerful contributions to knowledge in the scientific world or the legal world, but art is singular. That's why every dictator gets rid of the artists first. They burn the books and execute the artists first. Then they get on with whatever else they're interested in. Art might do something. It's dangerous.

  Toni Morrison

  Art, Powerful, Book

  Source: theharvardadvocate.com

• As a writer reading, I came to realize the obvious: the subject of the dream is the dreamer.

  Toni Morrison

  Dream, Book, Reading

  Toni Morrison (2007). “Playing in the Dark”, p.19, Vintage

• 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. And the benefits they bring with them, in spite of the fact that they are either dismissed or upbraided - something about their presence is constructive in the long run.

  Toni Morrison

  Running, Book, Ideas

  O, The Oprah Magazine, November 2003.

• I feel like today we always glorify the young, just-plucked-from-college writer. But it's much harder to start writing later, in middle age, struggling on a book around a full-time job and family.

  Toni Morrison

  Jobs, Struggle, Book

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• All the books that were being published by African-American guys were saying 'screw whitey', or some variation of that. Not the scholars but the pop books. And the other thing they said was, 'You have to confront the oppressor.' I understand that. But you don't have to look at the world through his eyes. I'm not a stereotype; I'm not somebody else's version of who I am. And so when people said at that time black is beautiful – yeah? Of course. Who said it wasn't? So I was trying to say, in The Bluest Eye, wait a minute. Guys. There was a time when black wasn't beautiful. And you hurt.

  Toni Morrison

  Beautiful, Hurt, Book

  "Toni Morrison: 'I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness'". Interview With Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. April 13, 2012.

• I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later.

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Finishing, Wonderful

  "Toni Morrison Knows All About the 'Little Drop of Poison' in Your Childhood". Interview with Maddie Oatman, www.motherjones.com. April 21, 2015.

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