“Stop thinking about saving your fragile face. Tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp. We will not blame you if your words go down in flames and nothing is left but the raw-scald. We will not blame you if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the red places where blood might flow. We will not blame you because we know you can never do it properly: once and for all. Passion is never enough. Talent is never enough. Skill is never enough. But try. For our sake and yours. So. Forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul. You, so blessed with occasional blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
— Toni Morrison, The Nobel Lecture In Literature, 1993
This is partially misquoted; the correct text is at this link. Here is the actual passage, though the whole thing is worth a read (the context of the passage is a fable wherein a group of young people are questioning an old wise woman; in the allegory Morrison creates the young people are demanding answers and firm guidance from this old master of language, who they suspect to be a fraud):
Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly – once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul. You, old woman, blessed with blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.
