Line By Line: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

"Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion."

"Lonely was much better than alone"

"Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging."

"I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me."

"Tough shit, buddy."