"I used to tell my students: don't settle for happiness. It's just not good enough. Life has to be about something more than whether you feel good. It has to be about the acquisition of knowledge and the hope for wisdom. In every one of my books, no matter what else is going on [...] that's what happens at the end. Somebody knows something about themselves or about the world that they did not know before, and it's important."
— Toni Morrison, from the 2015 documentary The Life of Toni Morrison