I'm not [a Buddhist]. The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The teachings can help you, but really, we're all here with the opportunity the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that...I'm just not interested in labels. I find all of them constrictive. They're hard to wear. And they're hard to wear because we're always - hopefully - growing.

My great-great-great-grandmother walked as a slave from Virginia to Eatonton, Georgia... It is in memory of this walk that I chose to keep and to embrace my "maiden" name, Walker.

As for those who think the Arab world promises freedom, the briefest study of its routine traditional treatment of blacks (slavery) and women (purdah) will provide relief from all illusion. If Malcolm X had been a black woman his last message to the world would have been entirely different. The brotherhood of Moslem men-all colors-may exist there, but part of the glue that holds them together is the thorough suppression of women.

The infinite faith I have in people's ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am 'known for' is what I am.

It just seems clear to me that as long as we are all here, it's pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it.

Our problem mostly in our abuse of each other and the planet is greed. Just the rampant, incredible greed that people have partly because they're empty and they can't get enough because they're - you know, it's that Buddhist thing about the hungry ghost with the little mouth and the big belly.