Alice Walker citations

Page 2

“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.”

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

“Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to get attention we do, except walk?”

“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”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”