Quotes from Alice Walker

When life descends into the pit I must become my own candle Willingly burning myself To light up the darkness Around me.

Choose someone to love who wouldn't even hear of it.

To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves...We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love, and die.

The world was almost at the point of forgetting what a fine time people can have helping one another. That people like to work together and to kick back after work and share their experiences. What would happen if our foreign policy centered on the cultivation of joy rather than pain? she thought.

This was my first indication of the quality I feel is most characteristic of Zora's work: racial health; a sense of black people as complete, complex, undiminished human beings, a sense that is lacking in so much black writing and literature.

There is so much we don't understand. And so much unhappiness that comes because of that.

It is the need to be remembered that has caused most of the trouble in the world

She can have them, Mama, she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her.

My fantasy life. Without it I'm afraid to exist.

I live a very secluded life, a very contemplative life and a very meditative one. That is my ideal life.

Ain't nothing wrong with Shug Avery. She just sick. Sicker than anybody I ever seen. She sicker than my mama was when she die. But she more evil than my mama and that keep her alive.

If my mind is crowded with ideas or thoughts or plans or other people's creations there is less room for my own.

At menopause, a time of extremely high power and shapeshifting, we are told to behave as though nothing is happening. To continue the "game" of life as if we are still girls. We are not girls. And to continue to act as though we are robs the world and the coming generations of our insights.

There's something in all of us that wants a medal for what we have done. That wants to be appreciated.

She got a right to look over the world in whatever company she choose. Just cause I love her don't take away none of her rights.

My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it.

Pagan At home in the countryside I make the decision to leave your book --overdue at the library-- face up, 'promiscuous' out in the sun. Pagan. I laugh to see this was our religion all along. Hidden even from ourselves taught early not to touch the earth. Years of white gloves straight seamed hose. 'Being good girls.' Scripture like chains. Dogma like flies. Smiles like locks and lies.

You know Shug will fight, he say. Just like Sofia. She bound to live her life and be herself no matter what.

Young womens no good these days, he say. Got they legs open to every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Do not be like cows grazing watching the butcher.

He say, Celie, tell me the truth. You don't like me cause I'm a man? I blow my nose. take off they pants, I say, and men look like frogs to me. No matter how you kiss 'em, as far as I'm concern, frogs is what they stay.

This book is dedicated with tenderness and respect to the blameless vulva

I remember one time you said your life made you feel so ashamed you couldn't even talk about it to God, you had to write it, bad as you thought your writing was. Well, now I know what you meant. And whether God reads letters or no, I know you will go on writing them; which is guidance enough for me. (Walker 2000: 110)

One good thing bout the way he never do any work round the place, us never miss him when he gone.