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"Take off that coat,' he told him.'Sir?''You heard me.'The boy slipped out of his jacket, whining, 'What you gonna do? What I'm gonna wear?'The man untied the baby from her chest and wrapped it in the boy's coat, knotting the sleeves in front.'What I'm gonna wear?'The old man sighed and, after a pause, said, 'You want it back then go head and take it off that baby. Put the baby naked in the grass and put your coat back on. And if you can do it, then go on 'way somewhere and don't come back."
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Exlpore more Morality quotes
"Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk."
"Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue, but also (as they did not see) a school of vice. It is ambivalent. It makes good men better and bad men worse."
"I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal."
"Prostitution' is a euphemism for rape incidents that the victim and the economy profits from."
"The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive."
"There never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."
"And there, right in the middle of it, I find 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven."
"When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him."
Explore more quotes by Toni Morrison
"Where do you get the right to decide our lives? I'll tell you where. From that little hog's gut that hangs between your legs. Well, let me tell you something... you will need more than that. I don't know where you will get it or who will give it to you, but mark my words, you will need more than that.... You are a sad, pitiful, stupid, selfish, hateful man. I hope your little hog's gut stands you in good stead, and you take good care of it, because you don't have anything else."
"Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed," she said, "and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks."
"They hooted and laughed all the way back to the car, teasing Milkman, egging him on to tell more about how scared he was. And he told them. Laughing too, hard, loud, and long. Really laughing, and he found himself exhilarated by simply walking the earth. Walking it like he belonged on it; like his legs were stalks, tree trunks, a part of his body that extended down down down into the rock and soil, and were comfortable there--on the earth and on the place where he walked. And he did not limp."
"She knew Paul D was adding something to her life-something she wanted to count on but was scared to... His waiting eyes and awful human power. The mind of him that knew her own. Her story was bearable because it was his as well-to tell, to refine and tell again. The things neither knew about the other-the things neither had word-shapes for-well, it would come in time."
"I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.... So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger."
"No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along."
"I stood there a long while, staring at that tree. It looked so strongSo beautiful. Hurt right down the middleBut alive and well. Cee touched my shoulderLightly. Frank? Yes? Come on, brother. Let's go home."
"How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it."
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