"So many of us feel that we have found ourselves through, because of and in relation to Toni and her work...I was in my late twenties when we met. And although she was in her early forties, she was not yet Toni Morrison, the internationally acclaimed writer. But she was on a mission to open the U.S. publishing industry to black writers and activists. “I wanted to give back something,” she later said to Hilton Als. “I wasn’t marching. I didn’t go to anything. I didn’t join anything. But I could make sure there was a published record of those who did march and did put themselves on the line”...I learned so much from Toni: the evocative element of perception and language, the expansiveness of the political beyond traditional realms of power, the importance of identifying and attempting to contest the white gaze, the male gaze. But what I value most among all of her many gifts is how she demonstrated a way of being in the world that allowed her simultaneously to inhabit multiple dimensions. She was always here and there at the same time, totally present with you, but also, at the same time, creating new universes."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesChildren's authorsEditors from the United StatesPlaywrights from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Angela Davis quoted here (2019)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor, who received a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
162 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Toni Morrison →
Related Quotes
"Reviewers tend to have trouble with a writer like Toni Morrison, getting a handle on her, because she is doing someth…"
"Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty."
"There is really nothing more to say — except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how."
"Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about "us"; it is al…"
"At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It …"
"Was there anything so loathsome as a wilfully innocent man? Hardly. An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and …"
"Writing to me is an advanced and slow form of reading. If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been …"
"Black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black…"
"Beginning Beloved with numerals rather than spelled out numbers, it was my intention to give the house an identity se…"
"The couple upstairs, united, didn't hear a sound, but below them, outside, all around 124 the snow went on and on and…"