Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
In the far upper corner of my altar is a photo of Joan Crawford in her most fierce Mommy Dearest mode, just to remind me of some of the cost of everyone's hard-earned sweetness and light.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the sacrifices and challenges behind the façade of happiness and success.
Alice Walker's quote highlights the contrast between the surface-level brightness ('sweetness and light') that people often seek and the deeper realities and sacrifices that underpin it. By referencing Joan Crawford's iconic role as a demanding mother, Walker reminds us that achieving or maintaining a certain level of 'sweetness' or contentment often comes with a cost, urging us to acknowledge and appreciate the complexities of life.
Themes
SacrificeHappinessRealitiesStruggleSuccess
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal growth, one might quote Alice Walker to emphasize the importance of recognizing the hard work that leads to success.
More from Alice Walker
All quotes →June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
Alice WalkerRead
On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what's hidden. It's illuminated life more than darkened it.
Alice WalkerRead
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
Alice WalkerRead
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 WalkerRead
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
Alice WalkerRead
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