I try to teach my heart not to want things it cant have.

After all, how can a society flourish, a country attain democracy and health, children grow into intelligent beings, sensitive to the needs of an ever more fragile and endangered planet, if half it's people are kept out of the driver's seat?

The world is changing. It is no longer a world just for boys and men

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

You got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can't do it for you. You got to fight them for yourself. I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don't fight, I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive.

If she come, I be happy. If she don't, I be content.