20 Best Beloved Quotes By Toni Morrison

'Beloved' is one of the best works from the Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison.

'Beloved' is a wonderful book about a woman who escaped after being enslaved. It's about how she fights the ghosts of her past to make a beautiful future.

Morrison wrote the book wanting to give a voice to people who had were being forced to forget the dark past they had to go through. The book falls in the genre of historical fiction, as it tells the real history of slavery through fictional characters.

The protagonist of the story, Sethe, escaped from slavery but in the book we see her struggle to find her way to escape from her past and the face memories of the traumatic experiences she endured. The themes that the story include slavery, community, family, home, memory of the past, and destruction of identity. Alongside Sethe, there are many other characters in the book, including Paul D and Amy Denver to name a few. The name of the book comes from the name of a character, Belvoed, who is Sethe's baby and child.

You can read these quotations to know more about the story and the themes. The novel is universally loved and makes complex themes easier to understand for readers. This is just one of the things that makes the book so special.

Morrison sadly died in 2019, at the age of 88 years, but her legacy lives on through her words. If you like these 'Beloved' quotes, you can also look at these 'The Bluest Eye' quotes and Toni Morrison quotes for more amazing Toni Morrison quotes.

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The book 'Beloved' is hugely successful, and one of the best things about the book is the way in which it shows how a woman, who whilst going through the worst time in her life, fights her way to the future and has to face her memories head-on. Here we have some of the best quotes from and about Baby Suggs, Sethe, Paul D, and more characters from Morrison's book 'Beloved'.

1. "There is a loneliness that can be rocked. It's an inside kind—wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own."

- Toni Morrison, part three, 'Beloved'.

2. "All the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

3. "To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The 'better life' she believed she and Denver were living was simply not that other one."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

4. "'Here,' she said, 'in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.'"

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

5. "In the heat of every Saturday afternoon, she sat in the clearing while the people waited among the trees."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

6. "Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name."

- Toni Morrison, part three, 'Beloved'.

7. "'It's gonna hurt, now,' said Amy. 'Anything dead coming back to life hurts.'"

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

8. "It made them furious. They swallowed baking soda, the morning after, to calm the stomach violence caused by the bounty, the reckless generosity on display at 124. Whispered to each other in the yards about fat rats, doom and uncalled-for pride."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

9. "She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order."

- Sixo, Toni Morrison, part three, 'Beloved'.

10. "'Beloved', she said, and her voice was so low and rough each one looked at the other two. They heard the voice first - later the name."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

'Beloved' tells an important story about slavery, escape from trauma, a beautiful woman, her life in the community, and her family. With a range of nuanced and inspiring characters, the book is able to explore important themes in a detailed way. A few examples of some of the most important quotes from the story are given below.

11. "I am Beloved and she is mine."

- Toni Morrison, part two, 'Beloved'.

12. "Some lost direction and their neighbors, feeling the confused pull of the chain, snatched them around. For one lost, all lost. The chain that held them would save all or none, and Hi Man was the Delivery."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

13. "My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that’s all I remember."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

14. "Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon—everything belonged to the men who had the guns."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

15. "'A man ain’t nothing but a man,' said Baby Suggs. 'But a son? Well now, that’s somebody.'"

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

16. "Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul D, the word her daughter had used a few years ago did cross her mind and she thought… Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?"

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

17. "Bit by bit, at 124 and in the Clearing, along with the others, she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

18. "A woman, a child, a brother - a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. 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."

- Toni Morrison, part one, 'Beloved'.

19. "He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. 'You your best thing, Sethe. You are.' His holding fingers are holding hers."

- Toni Morrison, part three, 'Beloved'.

20. "If they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away."

- Toni Morrison, part two, 'Beloved'.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 'Beloved' quotes from Toni Morrison and her characters, then why not take a look at these bell hooks quotes and Angela Davis quotes too?