Toni Morrison Quotes

The whole world is starting to realize that it was the most unwise thing for our society to have ignored women power, to run the society with male priorities.

What does it mean to a successful woman today? Does it mean you have to be a mother? If you are a mother, does it mean you have to be a mother with a husband? If you don't have a husband, what is the role that the man plays? I think there are a lot of confusing things that we're all really still sorting out.

I don't have a lot of men in my life. I'm married, but I have daughters. I'm surrounded by a lot of females in my world.

In a home where there is an able-bodied husband, he is expected to be the breadwinner.

When you're the only girl in a family of men, you have to be pretty sassy.

In fact, it was the women in our house who were in the saddle. If men are the gods, women are not only the presidents but all the ministers of the government.

Nobody has said to men, 'It is OK if you want to be a full-time dad; find a woman who will support you.'

There’s no more despised figure on earth than a woman who seeks power.

Every woman is just a different kind of problem.

I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element.

A woman's desire is either terrifying, or it's ignored.

For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.

There are relatively few role models for young people. We are in a society that is ruled by men.

If a man is a writer, everybody tiptoes around past the locked door of the breadwinner. But if you're an ordinary female housewife, people say, 'This is just something Barbara wanted to do; it's not professional.'

I've had to live with women all my life. I grew up with four older sisters, and I was the baby and the only boy.

I think people are frightened of women making big decisions.

People think anything done from a woman's perspective is only going to appeal to women.

Women can break down barriers to opportunity, and men, many of them reluctantly, have learned to relate to women as their equals in thought and action. But except for an eccentric few, women do not want to become warriors.

I have friends who have daughters and there's times I think I'm glad I have boys instead of girls.

My mom was sarcastic about men. She would tell me Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the final product. She was a feminist minister, an earth mom who wore a bra only on Sundays.

Unfortunately we - and I'm speaking not for Latin America but for Mexico because that's where I come from - we still, I think, are a little bit macho. Not that we only live in a macho world, but we also think as a macho world; even the women, you know? The women in Mexico, because that's the way we were raised.

A lot of the time, the way it's portrayed is that I only see women in a sexual way. But I grew up with just my mum and sister, so I respect women a lot.

The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.

Women get the attention when we get into the men's arena, and that's sad.

Women with money and women in power are two uncomfortable ideas in our society.