Toni Morrison Quotes

Shame is the shadow of love.

Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits.

I've struggled for confidence and had great doubts about myself. But, personally, I'm not riddled with guilt.

I can't do this because I can't...I can't be the man I want to be with you. And that means that this - this just becomes...another reminder of what I am not.

I hate you." I love you." You're a freak, you know that? Everyone says so. They always have." I'm trying not to be.

If our elaborate and dominating bodies are given us to be denied at every turn, if our nature is always wrong and wicked, how ineffectual we are; like fishes not meant to swim.

Veils of love which was only hate petrified by longing--that was me.

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!' 'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.

I didn’t feel that there was much goodness in me.

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.

For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind - a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.

why can't we love the right people? what is so wrong with us that we rush into situations to which we are manifestly unsuited, which will hurt us and others? why are we given emotions which we cannot control and which move in exact contradiction to what we really want? we are walking conflicts, internal battles on legs.

I have this idyllic love life, but my mind just won't accept that. I would like to bring a new guy home every night. I try to make humor out of that situation.

Nothing is harder than to accept oneself.

I love myself, the way I look, my body, but sometimes I can't help but feel insecure.

True, I am in love with suffering, but I do not know if I deserve the honor.

My demons and I are not compatible. We never have been and never will be.

Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.

Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.

My confidence wavers between being genuine and being insecure.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

When it comes to life and love, why do we believe our worst reviews?

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

When a woman falls in love with me, I feel guilty. I am convinced that it's pure obstinacy that keeps me from reciprocating her passion. As I explain to her that I'm gay, it sounds, even to me, like a silly excuse; I scarcely believe it myself.