Young people, Lord. Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty. Before I was reduced to singsong, I saw all kinds of mating. Most are two-night stands trying to last a season. Some, the riptide ones, claim exclusive right to the real name, even though everybody drowns in its wake. People with no imagination feed it with sex—the clown of love. They don’t know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that—softly, without props. But the world is such a showpiece, maybe that’s why folks try to outdo it, put everything they feel onstage just to prove they can think up things too: handsome scary things like fights to the death, adultery, setting sheets afire. They fail, of course. The world outdoes them every time. While they are busy showing off, digging other people’s graves, hanging themselves on a cross, running wild in the streets, cherries are quietly turning from greed to red, oysters are suffering pearls, and children are catching rain in their mouths expecting the drops to be cold but they’re not; they are warm and smell like pineapple before they get heavier and heavier, so heavy and fast they can’t be caught one at a time. Poor swimmers head for shore while strong ones wait for lightning’s silver veins. Bottle-green clouds sweep in, pushing the rain inland where palm trees pretend to be shocked by the wind. Women scatter shielding their hair and men bend low holding the women’s shoulders against their chests. I run too, finally. I say finally because I do like a good storm. I would be one of those people in the weather channel leaning into the wind while lawmen shout in megaphones: ‘Get moving!

Toni Morrison


Show the quote in German

Show the quote in French

Show the quote in Italian

Go to quote


...the change was adjustment without improvement.

Toni Morrison


Show the quote in German

Show the quote in French

Show the quote in Italian

Go to quote


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

Toni Morrison


Go to quote


I know what every colored woman in this country is doing... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.

Toni Morrison


Go to quote


Instead of ignoring her infirmity, pretending it was not there, he made it seem like something special and endearing. For the first time Pauline felt that her bad foot was an asset

Toni Morrison


Go to quote


Lonely was much better than alone.

Toni Morrison

Tags: solitude loneliness



Go to quote


She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

Toni Morrison

Tags: friendship love



Go to quote


As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

Toni Morrison

Tags: power dreams



Go to quote


Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes.

Toni Morrison


Go to quote


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

Toni Morrison

Tags: freedom self



Go to quote



Page 1 of 41.
next last »

©gutesprueche.com

Data privacy

Imprint
Contact
Wir benutzen Cookies

Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.

OK Ich lehne Cookies ab