Toni Morrison

"The site of trauma becomes a kind of landscape that can be revisited and reworked."

"If you don't fail, you're not pushing hard enough."

"Every act of creation is an act of rebellion against what is."

"To be truly free, you must acknowledge your own complicity in your oppression."

"Narrative is the way we make sense of our chaotic experiences."

"Beauty without compassion is cruelty masquerading as virtue."

"The past always has a way of intruding upon the present in ways we cannot control."

"To be seen and to be known are not the same thing."

"Language shapes reality; change the language and you change the world."

"Sorrow is the price we pay for love; it's the proof that the love was real."

"To survive is not the same as to have lived."

"The most dangerous thing is to assume you already know."

"What you do to yourself is what you do to the world."

"To be human is to be connected to all other humans across time."

"Memory is not a collection of moments; it is the story we tell ourselves about them."

"The work of writers is to move beyond the personal into the universal."

"To accept responsibility for your choices is to claim your power."

"Children understand that the world is not made of language; it is made of consequences."

"The worst thing that can happen to a woman is to be invisible."

"To write is to risk exposure, and exposure is the beginning of intimacy."

"We are not born knowing how to love; we must learn it from each other."

"The future is not something that happens to us; it is something we create."

"To be critical is to be alive; to cease questioning is to cease being human."

"Language can be used to illuminate or to obscure; choose carefully."

"The legacy we leave is not in our possessions but in our impact on others."

"To acknowledge pain is not weakness; it is the beginning of healing."

"What we choose to remember shapes who we are."

"The most revolutionary act is to tell the truth as you see it."

"Connections between people are the only thing that matters in the end."

"To live without interrogating your own life is to be asleep."