“The infinite faith I have in people's ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.”
Faith
“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.”
BestAll Quotes by Alice Walker
“The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.”
Society“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.”
Men“Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.”
Mom“Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home.”
Home“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
Friendship“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.”
Money“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.”
Change“How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.”
Mom“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.”
Women“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.”
Art“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.”
Women“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.”
Best“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.”
Religion“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.'”
Education“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
Power“The experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate.”
Experience“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.”
God“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.”
Experience“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.”
Future