SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
And Toni Morrison meant a lot to many people. Not just to writers, but to her many, many readers. After news broke that Morrison had died, Twitter exploded with remembrances, but mostly with Toni Morrison's words. Here are Hanif Abdurraqib, Angeline Rodriguez, Karen Rainey, Shaina Destine and Lincoln Michel, reading their favorite quotes.
HANIF ABDURRAQIB: (Reading) In Ohio, seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.
ANGELINE RODRIGUEZ: (Reading) All paradises, all utopias, are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.
KAREN RAINEY: (Reading) She lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless the pleasure pleased her.
SHAINA DESTINE: (Reading) If there is a book that you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.
LINCOLN MICHEL: (Reading) This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak. We write. We do language. That is how civilizations heal.
PFEIFFER: And this is Toni Morrison herself, as she's receiving the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TONI MORRISON: We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.