{"author":"Toni Morrison","author_id":"Toni+Morrison","total_quotes":195,"quotes":[{"text":"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.].","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["anger","control","emotions","inspiration","power","writing"],"id":233,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"I want to remind us all that art is dangerous. I want to remind you of the history of artists who have been murdered, slaughtered, imprisoned, chopped up, refused entrance. The history of art, whether it's in music or written or what have you, has always been bloody, because dictators and people in office and people who want to control and deceive know exactly the people who will disturb their plans.And those people are artists. They're the ones that sing the truth. And that is something that society has got to protect. But when you enter that field, no matter whether that's Sonia's poetry or Ta-Nehisi's rather startlingly clear prose, it's a dangerous pursuit. Somebody's out to get you. You have to know it before you start, and do it under those circumstances, because it is one of the most important things that human beings do.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["art","inpiration"],"id":737,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"She stopped then and turned her face toward him and the hateful wind.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["prose"],"id":2868,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["hope","past"],"id":3255,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"The best thing she was, was her children.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["children","motherhood","mothers"],"id":6168,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"There's a difference between writing for a living and writing forlife. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises....If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest,not what pays.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["writers-on-writing"],"id":7143,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["inspiration"],"id":7421,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. 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? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["emotion","love","self-respect","value"],"id":8774,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["family","feminism","power"],"id":11217,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"},{"text":"Daily life took as much as she had. The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn't stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out.","author":"Toni Morrison","tags":["challenges","life","past","present","trials"],"id":11477,"author_id":"Toni+Morrison"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":195,"pages":20,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}