I think that wealthy white people would like to have a country that resembles the Fifties, when all the minorities were tucked away in ghettos and paid in very low wages but on the surface it was very bright and shiny and free and the rest of the world would look on it longingly.

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.

I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find themselves always in the company of people who care about many of the things I do.

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. Girl, child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I had to fight in my own house. I loves Harpo. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.

Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.

It has been proved that the land can exist without the country - and be better for it; it has not been proved ... that the country can exist without the land.

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.