Laughter isn't even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don't you think?
Alice WalkerIt's better to have your blackness taken away than to stand and lie about who you actually are.
Alice WalkerAs you know from school, it's when you have not prepared for the test that you have the fear of failing. And if you have prepared, even if you fail, you've done your best.
Alice WalkerAbortion, for many women, is more than an experience of suffering beyond anything most men will ever know, it is an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.
Alice WalkerEventually I knew what hair wanted; it wanted to be itself ... to be left alone by anyone, including me, who did not love it as it was.
Alice WalkerThe earth is wise. It has given itself into the keeping of all, and all are therefore accountable.
Alice WalkerIn my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.
Alice WalkerBe nobody's darling; Be an outcast. Take the contradictions Of your life And wrap around You like a shawl, To parry stones To keep you warm. Watch the people succumb To madness With ample cheer; Let them look askance at you And you askance reply. Be an outcast; Be pleased to walk alone (Uncool) Or line the crowded River beds With other impetuous Fools. Make a merry gathering On the bank Where thousands perished For brave hurt words They said. Be nobody's darling; Be an outcast. Qualified to live Among your dead.
Alice WalkerThere are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.
Alice WalkerI grew up in the South [USA states] under segregation. I know what terrorism feels like - when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn't look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. That's terrorism, too.
Alice WalkerNo matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people.
Alice WalkerExpect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.
Alice WalkerBut if by some miracle and all our struggle, the earth is spared, only justice to every living being will save humankind.
Alice WalkerIt is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's 'mature' critics often are.
Alice WalkerI 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.
Alice WalkerNow there are heavy houses everywhere and more of them are being built. In fact, it is only when more houses are being constructed that some countries consider their economics healthy. Yet each house is a heavy footprint on the Earth. Just as all our possessions represent-if we cannot learn ways of sharing them-a weight and clutter that often means the faces of future generations will look up into darkness and the pressure on the Earth of "things."
Alice WalkerNot everyone's life is what they make it. Some people's life is what other people make it.
Alice WalkerWe will be ourselves and free, or die in the attempt. Harriet Tubman was not our great-grandmother for nothing.
Alice Walker'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.
Alice WalkerI'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.
Alice WalkerWar is a dead end, literally. And, what is more, we simply can't afford it. Not morally, and not financially. How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
Alice WalkerIn our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins.
Alice WalkerHe 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.
Alice WalkerWe must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.
Alice WalkerAfter 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?
Alice WalkerI have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing.
Alice WalkerI feel a little peculiar around the children. For one thing, they grown. And I see they think me and Nettie and Shug and Albert and Samuel and Harpo and Sofia and Jack and Odessa real old and don't know much what going on. But I don't think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.
Alice WalkerNo song or poem will bear my mother's name. Yet so many of the stories that I write, that we all write, are my mother's stories.
Alice WalkerCritics don't really affect the fact that we live in this paradise and what the meaning of that [is]. And what luck to have this!
Alice WalkerThe forest is the first cathedral. I felt that from the time I was a child. I credit my mother with that. I used to think it came from her Native-American side. Whichever it was, she instinctively connected with nature, and taught me that. Church just could not hold my spirit.
Alice WalkerI am not convinced that men and women were ever meant to share the same house, though some people can do it beautifully.
Alice WalkerDon't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself.
Alice WalkerI know from having had a child, and from having been a child myself, that children will copy you. So, the best way to get them to read, is to read. The best way to get them to do anything is to do it yourself, and they will absolutely copy you. That way, you don't have to worry about what's supposedly age appropriate, a child will pick something up when the child is ready.
Alice Walker