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They stayed that way for a while because neither Denver nor Sethe knew how not to: how to stop and not love the look or feel of the lips that kept on kissing.

— Toni Morrison Beloved (1987)

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Love

More quotes by Toni Morrison

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

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

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose—not to need permission for desire—well now, that was freedom.

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Toni Morrison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.