Alice Walker Quotes

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

“Horses make a landscape look beautiful.”

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

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

“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.”

“I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk.”

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”

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

“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.”

“Some colored people so scared of whitefolks they claim to love the cotton gin.”

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

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

“Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved.”

“And I thank God let me gain understanding enough to know love can't be halted just cause some peoples moan and groan. P.238”

“The only way to solace anyone who loved you in life is to be a good memory”

“Activism is the rent I pay for living on the planet.”

“We know a roofleaf is not Jesus Christ, but in its own humble way, is it not God?”

“Even as I hold you, I am letting you go.”

“Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof.”

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”

“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.”

“… 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.”

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.”

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

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

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

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

“The nature of this flower is to bloom.”

“A grown child is a dangerous thing.”

“Everything want to be loved.”

“we are the ones we have been waiting for”

“Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.”

“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.”

“When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning my self
To light up the darkness around me.”

“Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The more I wonder, the more I love.”

“When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.”

“Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.”

“I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.”

“Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.”

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

“(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.”

“She thought of how precious it was to be able to know another person over many years. There was incomparable richness in it.”

“What you hope for, you also fear.”

“Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored”

“Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.”

“Who am I to tell her who to love? My job just to love her good and true myself. P. 237”

“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…”

“Like I said… fine with me.”

“The world is changing, I said. It is no longer a world just for boys and men.”

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

“I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.”

“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.”

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise”

“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.”

“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.”

“His little whistle sound like it lost way down a jar, and the jar in the bottom of the creek. P. 64”

“Resist the temptation to think what afflicts you is peculiar to you. Have faith that what is in your consciousness can be communicated to the consciousness of all. And is, in many cases, already there.”

“Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.”

“Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.”

“A writer's heart, a poet's heart, an artist's heart, a musician's heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world…”

“Resistance is the secret of joy!”

“I've found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing.”

“The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom

Rebellious. Living.
Against the Elemental Crush.
A Song of Color
Blooming
For Deserving Eyes.
Blooming Gloriously
For its Self.”