Freedom, after all, is like love: the more you give to others, the more you have.

Healing begins where the wound was made.

I don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of.

He beat me like he beat the children. Cept he don't never hardly beat them. He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.

I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same, there's a real lightheartednes s about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they're not the same, ever again.

We're going to have to debunk the myth that Africa is a heaven for black people -- especially black women. We've been the mule of the world there and the mule of the world here.

War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.