Measure of Our Lives: A Gathering of Wisdom (First edition)

At once the ideal introduction to Toni Morrison and a lovely and moving keepsake for her devoted readers: a treasury of quotations from her work.

With a foreword by Zadie Smith."She was our conscience.

Our seer. Our truthteller." --Oprah WinfreyThis inspirational book juxtaposes quotations, one to a page, drawn from Toni Morrison's entire body of work, both fiction and nonfiction--from The Bluest Eye to God Help the Child, from Playing in the Dark to The Source of Self-Regard--to tell a story of self-actualization.

It aims to evoke the totality of Toni Morrison's literary vision.

Its compelling sequence of flashes of revelation--stunning for their linguistic originality, keenness of psychological observation, and philosophical profundity--addresses issues of abiding interest in Morrison's work: the reach of language for the ineffable; transcendence through imagination; the self and its discontents; the vicissitudes of love; the whirligig of memory; the singular power of women; the original American sin of slavery; the bankruptcy of racial oppression; the complex humanity and art of black people.

The Measure of Our Lives brims with elegance of style and mind and moral authority.