Impossibly Captivating Toni Morrison Quotes, Who Sadly Left Our World on Monday

This week one of the greatest American author and Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison, has passed away at the age of 88 this week, leaving our world for a better place. Even though it is sad news, there is comfort in knowing that the world was lucky enough to have her for a while and impart on it her words on love, wisdom, sense of self-worth, and who mothered her readers with faith in ourselves. Morrison was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature in December 1993, who went into the literary scene age of 39 in 1970, by her novel “The Bluest Eye” in 1970, moving on to write outstanding novels, such as “Beloved” and “Songs of Solomon”.

Here are some of her most loved quotes.

On Love

Love is never any better than the lover.

Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.

Something that is loved is never lost.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose, not to need permission for desire, well now that was freedom.

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?

Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

Don’t ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it

On Mortality

Death is a sure thing but life is just as certain. Problem is you can’t know in advance.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

On Challenges

You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

On Writing

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

By Sara Zarif