Song of Solomon Quotes

“Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Oh, sure. You have to know what's wrong before you can find what's right.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“You born here?"

"Naw. Down south. Jacksonville, Florida. Bad country, boy. Bad, bad country. You know they ain't even got an orphanage in Jacksonville where colored babies can go? They have to put 'em in jail. I tell people that talk about them sit ins I was raised in jail, and it don't scare me none.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“There are no innocent white people, because every one of them is a potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Some whites made sacrifices for Negroes. Real sacrifices.'
'...But they haven't been able to stop the killing either. They are outraged, but that doesn't stop it. They might even speak out, but that doesn't stop it either. They might even inconvenience themselves, but the killing goes on and on.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Jealousy loomed so large in her it made her tremble. Maybe you, she thought. Maybe it's you I should be killing. Maybe then he will come to me and let me come to him. He is my home in this world. And then, aloud, "He is my home in this world."

"And I am his," said Ruth.

"And he wouldn't give a pile of swan shit for either one of you."

"They turned then and saw Pilate leaning on the window sill. Neither knew how long she'd been there.

"Can't say as I blame him neither. Two growed-up women talkin 'bout a man like he was a house or needed one. He ain't a house, he's a man, and whatever he need, don't none of you got it.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“They were troublesome thoughts, but they wouldn't go away. Under the moon, on the ground, alone, with not even the sound of baying dogs to remind him that he was with other people, his self--the cocoon that was "personality"--gave way. He could barely see his own hand, and couldn't see his feet. He was only his breath, coming slower now, and his thoughts. The rest of him disappeared. So the thoughts came, unobstructed by other people, by things, even by the sight of himself.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“New people. New places. Command. That was what he wanted in his life.

He hated the acridness in his mother's and father's relationship, the conviction of righteousness they each held on to with both hands. And his efforts to ignore it, transcend it, seemed to work only when he spent his days looking for whatever was light-hearted and without grave consequences.

He avoided commitment and strong feelings, and shied away from decisions. He wanted to know as little as possible, to feel only enough to get through the day amiably and to be interesting enough to warrant the curiosity of other people-but not their all-consuming devotion.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Every time somebody does a thing like that to one of us, they say the people who did it were crazy or ignorant. That’s like saying they were drunk. Or constipated. Why isn’t cutting a man’s eyes out, cutting his nuts off, the kind of thing you never get too drunk or ignorant to do? Too crazy to do? Too constipated to do? And more to the point, how come Negroes, the craziest, most ignorant people in America, don’t get that crazy and that ignorant? No. White people are unnatural. As a race they are unnatural. And it takes a strong effort of the will to overcome an unnatural enemy.”

“What about the nice ones? Some whites made sacrifices for Negroes. Real sacrifices.”

“That just means there are one or two natural ones. But they haven’t been able to stop the killing either. They are outraged, but that doesn’t stop it. They might even speak out, but that doesn’t stop it either. They might even inconvenience themselves, but the killing goes on and on. So will we.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“let alone”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“Did you ever see the way clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for all 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, because 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.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“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, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“There are no innocent white people, because every one of them is a potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one. You think Hitler surprised them? You think just because they went to war they thought he was a freak? Hitler’s the most natural white man in the world. He killed Jews and Gypsies because he didn’t have us. Can you see those Klansmen shocked by him? No, you can’t.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“You can’t take a life and walk off and leave it. Life is life. Precious. And the dead you kill is yours. They stay with you anyway, in your mind. So it’s a better thing, a more better thing to have the bones right there with you wherever you go. That way, it frees up your mind.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“He just wanted to beat a path away from his parents’ past, which was also their present and which was threatening to become his present as well.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“I'll take hate any day. But don't give me love. I can't take no more love, Lord. I can't carry it.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“You don't have any weaknesses?'
'I haven't found any.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“It hurt him, he would say, deeply hurt him, after all these years, but if you loved somebody as he did her, you had to think of them first. You couldn't be selfish with somebody you loved.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Do you want him?"
"I want somebody," I told her. "He's as good as anybody," she said.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“She could not get his love. . .so she settled for his fear.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Some folks want to live forever. Some don't. I believe they decide on it anyway. People die when they want to and if they want to.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Suddenly, like an elephant who has just found his anger and lifts his trunk over the heads of the little men who want his teeth or his hide or his flesh or his amazing strength, Pilate trumpeted for the sky itself to hear, “And she was loved!”

It startled one of the sympathetic winos in the vestibule and he dropped his bottle, spurting emerald glass and jungle-red wine everywhere.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Every sentence, every word, was new to them and they listened to what he said like bright-eyed ravens, trembling in their eagerness to catch and interpret every sound in the universe.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“But there was nothing you could do with a mooring except acknowledge it, use it for the verification of some idea you wanted to keep alive.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“Things that make us hurt one another. We don’t even know why. But look here, don’t carry it inside and don’t give it to nobody else. Try to understand it, but if you can’t, just forget it and keep yourself strong, man.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“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?”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“There was the pain and shame of seeing his father crumple before any man—even himself. Sorrow in discovering that the pyramid was not a five-thousand-year wonder of the civilized world, mysteriously and permanently constructed by generation after generation of hardy men who had died in order to perfect it, but that it had been made in the back room at Sears, by a clever window dresser, of papier-mâché, guaranteed to last for a mere lifetime.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon: A Novel

“And she was loved”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon