Alice Walker

Revolt is the mirror in which greed is forced to see itself.

I just feel that 'The Color Purple,' which was my 10th book, was a true gift from my ancestors.

My family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation.

Everything is already perfect. And if you can accept that everything is already perfect, the imperfection is a part of the perfection. What's to worry about?

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

I started writing as a child. But I didn't think of myself actually writing until I was in college. And I had gone to Africa as a sophomore or something - no, maybe junior - and wrote a book of poems. And that was my beginning. I published that book.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America's really large shadow and that's not all that bad.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

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

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you've become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that's the height of intelligence.

It's a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they're different. It's very limiting.

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.

I write not only what I want to read...I write all the things I should have been able to read.

I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.

If you deny people their own voice, you'll have no idea of who they were.

It is because I recognize the brutality with which my own multi-branched ancestors have been treated that I can identify the despicable, lawless, cruel, and sadistic behavior that has characterized Israel's attempts to erase a people, the Palestinians, from their own land.

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

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.