Toni Morrison

"Her neck was long and lovely, but it was her mind that made you want to touch her."

"To believe that your life is insignificant is to be dead already."

"The ability to recognize injustice is the beginning of social change."

"Sometimes even the smallest decision can change the entire trajectory of your life."

"We die every day in small ways. The question is whether we are resurrecting too."

"Real life is here and now, not in memory or imagination."

"The work of the intellectual is to correct the records of the past."

"To understand what people want, you must understand what they fear."

"The artist's job is not to tell you what things mean but to show you what they might mean."

"Silence is a sound, too."

"We are the stories we tell ourselves."

"Time is not a line; it is a circle, and everything returns."

"The future cannot be allowed to be just a repetition of the past."

"Responsibility is the price of freedom."

"Words are things. You have to be careful with the words you use, with the names you give things."

"To be an artist means you are always searching."

"The person who needs you is the person you should serve."

"Loving anything with so much intensity means being vulnerable to its loss."

"The greatest gift a parent can give is the knowledge that they were wanted."

"What you do comes out of who you are."

"Love cuts across everything."

"The price of the ticket is your soul, but the journey is worth it."

"If you want to help us, acknowledge us."

"Every village constructs a narrative of its past, present, and future."

"The mark of a great writer is the ability to make readers feel the truth of human experience."

"To dream is to be free, at least in your own mind."

"Legacy is not what we leave behind; it is what we carry forward."

"You are only free when you realize you always were."

"Being human is the only thing we all have in common."

"The work of transformation requires patience and persistence."