Toni Morrison, a Writer of Many Gifts Who Bent Language to Her Will
Toni Morrison Was So Much More Than a Novelist
Toni Morrison Reshaped the Landscape of Literature
The Magnitude of Toni Morrison
The Essential Toni Morrison Reader
Beyond the Books: Toni Morrison’s Essays and Criticism
Toni Morrison Dancing: Photos of the Author at Work and Play
12 of Toni Morrison’s Most Memorable Quotes
“The very serious function of racism … is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says that you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says that you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary.” (“A Humanist View,” a 1975 speech Morrison gave at Portland State University)
What Toni Morrison’s Words Meant to Readers
The Perfect Ease of Grain
The perfect ease of grain
Time enough to spill
The flavor of a woman carried through the rain.
Honey-talk tongues
Down home dreams
A rushed by shapely prayer.
Evening lips part to hush
Questions raised at dawn.
The melon yields another slice.
Fingers understand.
Ecstasy becomes us all.
Red cherries become jam.
Deep juvenile sleep
A whistle trace
White shorelines in green air.
Welcome doors held open
When goodbye is “So long.”
The perfect poise of grain
Time enough to spill
The flavor of a woman remembered on a train.
Oragious 