“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.”

“The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek - it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.- Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 1993”

“We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom.”

“Shadrack rose and returned to the cot, where he fell into the first sleep of his new life. A sleep deeper than the hospital drugs; deeper than the pits of plums, steadier than the condor's wing; more tranquil than the curve of eggs.”

“More than fear of loving bears or birds bigger than cows, I fear pathless nights. How, I wonder, can I find you in the dark?”

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

“Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.”