Toni Morrison

Others surrender their identity; melt into a structure that delivers the strong persona they lack. Most others, however, grow beyond it.

The project, then, for this, my first book, was to enter the life of the one least likely to withstand such damaging forces because of youth, gender, and race.

She said she wanted blue eyes.

Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.

also why she prayed for so radical an alteration.

To the two who gave me life

and the one who made me free

There is really nothing more to say—except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

Adults do not talk to us—they give us directions. They issue orders without providing information.

So when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die.

Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being outdoors surfaced