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This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You've got to keep asserting the complexity and the originality of life, and the multiplicity of it, and the facets of it. This is about being a complex human being in the world, not about finding a villain. This is no time for anything else than the best that you've got.
Toni Morrison
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Artists should express their complexity and originality boldly and consistently.

Toni Morrison's quote emphasizes the importance of artists embracing their unique perspectives and experiences in a bold and ongoing manner. She encourages individuals to focus on the richness and multifaceted nature of life rather than searching for negativity, challenging her audience to present their best selves through their art amidst the complexity of the human experience.

Themes

ArtCreativityOriginalityComplexityExpression

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech at an art retreat, an artist could use this quote to inspire peers to stay true to their artistic vision.

More from Toni Morrison

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.
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You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.
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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.
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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.
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Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
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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.
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