Alice Walker > Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate.”
― Alice Walker

“Activism is my rent for living on the planet.”
― Alice Walker

“Any God I ever found in church, I brought in myself.”
― Alice Walker

“I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.”
― 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

“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

“What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears. ”
― Alice Walker

“In nature, nothing is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways and they're still beautiful.”
― 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

“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 cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.”
― 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

“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

“The nature of this flower is to bloom.”
― Alice Walker

“Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“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

“Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.”
― Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

“we are the ones we have been waiting for”
― 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

“Surely the earth can be saved by all the people who insist on love.”
― 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

“I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk.”
― Alice Walker, The Temple Of My Familiar

“Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“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

“I have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing.”
― Alice Walker

“Look closely at the present you are constructing:
it should look like the future you are dreaming.”
― Alice Walker

“You must learn to love only that which cannot be stolen.”
― Alice Walker

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

“What you hope for, you also fear. ”
― Alice Walker, The Temple Of My Familiar

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

“On Stripping Bark from Myself

(for Jane, who said trees die from it)

Because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their 'how nice she is!'
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.

No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes
to embrace.

I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I finally understand.

Besides:

My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death – to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.”
― Alice Walker, Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990 Complete

“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

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

“A grown child is a dangerous thing.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“(a womanist)

3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.”
― Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

“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

“...have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”
― 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

“Horses make a landscape look beautiful.”
― Alice Walker

“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

“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