Toni Morrison at the awards dinner
  • Dan Rest
  • Toni Morrison at the awards dinner

“I thought everything I wanted to read had already been written,” Toni Morrison told Oprah Winfrey at the Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner Wednesday night, explaining why she didn’t start writing until age 39. But she found out that wasn’t true, and wrote her first book, The Bluest Eye, so she could read it, she said.