32.

here's to one of the best american authors of our time. an inspiration like no other.

[toni morrison - time magazine]

from one of my favorite novels of all time. hers. beloved.

The picture is still there and what's more, if you go there--you who never was there--if you go there and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there for you, waiting for you... Because even though it's all over--over and done with--it's going to always be there waiting for you.

love is or it ain't. thin love ain't no love at all.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship’s, smooths and contains the rocker. It’s an inside kind – wrapped tight like a skin. Then there is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

So you protect yourself and you love small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own; lay down with head twisted in order to see the loved one over the rim of the trench before you slept…A woman , a child, a brother – a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, GA. He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose – not to need permission for desire – well now, that was freedom.