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.“
• "'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.“
• "As you know from school, it's when you have not prepared for the test that you have the fear of failing. And if you have prepared, even if you fail, you've done your best.“
• "As an elder of the Americas and of the rest of the planet, it is my responsibility to care for and protect, to the best of my ability, the young.“
• "I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same time, there's a real lightheartedness about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they're not the same, ever again.“
• "We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that's going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.“
• "Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.“
• "I'm not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself - then they get to say 'See, you did it yourself.'“
• "The experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate.“
• "All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.“
• "The infinite faith I have in people's ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.“
• "Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.“
• "As you know from school, it's when you have not prepared for the test that you have the fear of failing. And if you have prepared, even if you fail, you've done your best.“
• "For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.“
• "Fiction is such a world of freedom, it's wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.“
• "No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.“
• "To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.“
• "In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.“
• "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.“
• "Politically, the world is so confused right now - there's so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.“
• "Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself.“
• "All History is current all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.“
• "I'm not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself - then they get to say 'See, you did it yourself.'“
• "Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home.“
• "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.“
• "Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.“
• "How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.“
• "I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.“
• "Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.“
• "The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn't want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.“
• "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.“
• "In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.“
• "Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.“
• "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.“
• "Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.“
• "Politically, the world is so confused right now - there's so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.“
• "Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.“
• "I'm sure we, the American people, are the butt of jokes by those in power.“
• "I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it that's my religion.“
• "Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.“
• "It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put - without delay, and with tenderness - back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.“
• "The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.“
• "All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.“
• "War contributes greatly to global warming, which shouldn't surprise us. All those bombs going off, all those rockets, all those planes and helicopters. All that fuel of various kinds being used. It pollutes the air and water of this very fragile and interconnected planet.“
• "Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.“
• "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.“
• "I'm not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself - then they get to say 'See, you did it yourself.'“
• "Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.“
• "It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.“
• "My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.“
• "I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, 'black feminist' does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it's just... womanish.“
• "I'm for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.“
• "In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.“
• "My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.“
• "In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.“

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