Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Beloved," died Monday night at the age of 88, leaving behind a career filled with brilliance. Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1993, the first African-American woman to win the award. Morrison is also the subject of the 2019 documentary 'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am', which was directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Her novels have been known all over for their epic themes, exquisite language and richly detailed African-American characters who are central to their narratives.
Here are some of her iconic lines to remember the literary genius:


On writing: 

If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Writing is really a way of thinking, not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.


On racism:

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race – scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct.

I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, for the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.

My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.


On love:

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

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

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.


On gender:

I don’t think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It’s perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.

The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things.