"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."
— Alice Walker

"Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for."
— Alice Walker

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it"
— Alice Walker

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."
— Alice Walker

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
— Alice Walker

"HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.
HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.
HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.
HELPED are those who love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given clarity of vision.
HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize an partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.
HELPED are those who love the Earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy in her lively response to love, they will converse with the trees.
HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child.
HELPED are those who risk themselves for others' sakes; to them will be given increasing opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a vision of the word in which no one's gift is despised or lost.
HELPED are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or of war.
HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world.
HELPED are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth.
HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator's magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment without ceasing.
HELPED are those who laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous.
HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who love the lesbian, the gay, and the straight, as they love the sun, the moon, and the stars. None of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who love the broken and the whole; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who do not join mobs; theirs shall be the understanding that to attack in anger is to murder in confusion.
HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another--plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid.
HELPED are those who lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade of grass.
HELPED are those who love and actively support the diversity of life; they shall be secure in their differences.
HELPED are those who KNOW."
— Alice Walker

"Activism is my rent for living on the planet."
— Alice Walker

"Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm. "
— Alice Walker

"Any God I ever found in church, I brought in myself."
— Alice Walker

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own."
— Alice Walker

"Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate."
— Alice Walker

"I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart."
— Alice Walker

"Helped are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant."
— Alice Walker (The Temple of My Familiar)

"The world is changing. It is no longer a world just for boys and men”"
— Alice Walker

"She thought of how precious it was to be able to know another person over many years. There was incomparable richness in it."
— Alice Walker

"Laughter isn't even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don't you think?"
— Alice Walker

"The nature of this flower is to bloom."
— Alice Walker

"In nature, nothing is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways and they're still beautiful."
— Alice Walker

"Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise."
— Alice Walker

"Never offer your heart
to someone who eats hearts
who finds heartmeat
delicious
but not rare
who sucks the juices
drop by drop
and bloody-chinned
grins
like a God."
— Alice Walker

"When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning my self
To light up the darkness around me."
— Alice Walker

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back. "
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

"I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love."
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

"What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears. "
— Alice Walker

"Not only will your teachers appear, but they will cook new foods for you."
— Alice Walker

"we are the ones we have been waiting for"
— Alice Walker

"You a low down dog is what’s wrong. It’s time to leave you and enter into the creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need."
— Alice Walker

"it is this broken road with pitfalls and sharp turns and unexpected traverses that has brought me joy and adventure. "
— Alice Walker

"People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools. "
— Alice Walker

"Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly."
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

""Like I said...fine with me." "
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

"We do not believe in heaven or hell...; we do not believe in eternal damnation. We believe only in the unavoidable horror of hurting others and of likewise being hurt."
— Alice Walker (By the Light of My Father's Smile)

"Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for?"
— Alice Walker

"I have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing."
— Alice Walker

"I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way...I can't apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to... We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful...We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose."
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

"Some people don't understand that it is the nature of the eye to have seen forever, and the nature of the mind to recall anything that was ever known."
— Alice Walker (The Temple of My Familiar)

"Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up the flowers, wind, water, a big rock."
— Alice Walker (The Color Purple)

"I'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.
"
— Alice Walker

"You must learn to love only that which cannot be stolen."
— Alice Walker

"Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it."
— Alice Walker

"Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise."
— Alice Walker

"I don't know. I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as a handing down of answers..."
— Alice Walker

"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see - or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. "
— Alice Walker

"The most common way that people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any"
— Alice Walker

"She was so quiet. So reflective. And she could erase herself, her spirit, with a swiftness that truly startled, when she knew the people around her could not respect it."
— Alice Walker

"The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen."
— Alice Walker

"once there was a beautiful young panther who had a co-wife and a husband. Her name was Lara and she was unhappy because her husband and her co-wife were really in love; being nice to her was merely a duty panther society imposed on them. They had not even wanted to take her into their marriage as co-wife, since there were already perfectly happy. But she was an "extra" female in the group and that would not do. Her husband sometimes sniffed her breath and other emanations. He even, sometimes, made love to her. but whenever this happened, the co-wife, whose name was Lala, became upset. She and the husband, Baba, would argue, then fight, snarling and biting and whipping at each other's eyes with their tails. Pretty soon they'd become sick of this and would lie clutched in each other's paws, weeping.
I am supposed to make love to her, Baba would say to Lala, his heartchosen mate. She is my wife just as you are. I did not plan things this way. This is the arrangement that came down to me.

I know it, dearest, said Lala, through her tears. And this pain that I feel is what has come down to me. Surely it can't be right?

These two sat on a rock in the forest and were miserable enough. But Lara, the unwanted, pregnant by now and ill, was devastated. Everyone knew she was unloved, and no other female panther wanted to share her own husband with her. Days went by when the only voice she heard was her inner one.

Soon, she began to listen to it.

Lara, it said, sit here, where the sun may kiss you. And she did.

Lara, it said, lie here, where the moon can make love to you all night long. and she did.

Lara, it said, one bright morning when she knew herself to have been well kissed and well loved: sit here on this stone and look at your beautiful self in the still waters of this stream.

Calmed by the guidance offered by her inner voice, Lara sat down on the stone and leaned over the water. She took in her smooth, aubergine little snout, her delicate, pointed ears, her sleek, gleeming black fur. She was beautiful! And she was well kissed by the sun and well made love to by the moon.

For one whole day, Lara was content. When her co-wife asked her fearfully why she was smiling, Lara only opened her mouth wider, in a grin. The poor co-wife ran trembling off and found their husband, Baba, and dragged him back to look at Lara.

When Baba saw the smiling, well kissed, well made love to Lara, of course he could hardly wait to get his paws on her! He could tell she was in love with someone else, and this aroused all his passion.

While Lala wept, Baba possessed Lara, who was looking over his shoulder at the moon.

Each day it seemed to Lara that the Lara in the stream was the only Lara worth having - so beautiful, so well kissed, and so well made love to. And her inner voice assured her this was true.

So, one hot day when she could not tolerate the shrieks and groans of Baba and Lala as they tried to tear each other's ears off because of her, Lara, who by now was quite indifferent to them both, leaned over and kissed her own serene reflection in the water, and held the kiss all the way to the bottom of the stream. "
— Alice Walker

"What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood."
— Alice Walker

"Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise."
— Alice Walker