Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the emotional and psychological struggles of a man, emphasizing that he is not just a tool for work but has inner challenges.
Toni Morrison's quote reflects the idea that individuals can't be reduced to mere productivity or utility. It critiques the overwhelming pressure society puts on people to be constantly laboring and emphasizes the emotional toll that unaddressed inner struggles can take. Just as an axe is used for chopping, a person cannot be expected to tirelessly break through every obstacle without recognizing their own vulnerabilities and the deeper issues they face.
In practice
In a speech about mental health awareness, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of addressing inner struggles.
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.
You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.
What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.
The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
I think if you study--if you learn too much of what others have done, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody else.
We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind.
It's almost a blessing when we meet people who naturally want to do the sort of things that are in high demand in society. What a gift to do that, as opposed to other people who would say, 'I want to be a novelist but actually I have to be an accountant.'
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