Gina Burkart > Gina's Quotes

“In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried ... nothing is so warming and companionable.”
― Elizabeth Goudge

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison

“Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“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, Beloved

“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”
― Toni Morrison, Jazz

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
― Toni Morrison

“Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“You are your best thing”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
― Toni Morrison

“She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Love is never any better than the lover.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”
― Toni Morrison

“If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”
― Toni Morrison

“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.”
― Toni Morrison

“A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double.”
― Toni Morrison

“Lonely was much better than alone.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“Anything dead coming back to life hurts.”
― Toni Morrison

“Something that is loved is never lost.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”
― Toni Morrison

“He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘
‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“A dream is just a nightmare with lipstick.”
― Toni Morrison

“I dream a dream that dreams back at me”
― Toni Morrison, A Mercy