Alice Walker

She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.

— Alice Walker

It 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 Walker

The original crime of niggers and lesbians is that they prefer themselves.

— Alice Walker

Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home.

— Alice Walker

Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.

— Alice Walker

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

— Alice Walker

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.

— Alice Walker

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

— Alice Walker

The experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate.

— Alice Walker

Somewhere in the bible it say Jesus hair was like lamb's wool, I say. Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he'd have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention. The last thing niggers want to think about they God is that his hair kinky.

— Alice Walker

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.

— Alice Walker

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

— Alice Walker

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

— Alice Walker

The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native ground, they consider me a work of primitive art, housed in a magical color; the incarnation of civilized, anti-heathenism, and the fruit of a triumphing idea.

— Alice Walker

It seems our fate to be incorrect (look where we live, for example), and in our incorrectness stand.

— Alice Walker

It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.

— Alice Walker

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

— Alice Walker

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

— Alice Walker

I’ve also discovered the world is full of mothers who’ve done their best and still hurt their daughters: that we have daughters everywhere.

— Alice Walker

Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful [sic], and lowdown.

— Alice Walker

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

— Alice Walker

A person’s work is her only signature; we forget this at our peril. It is to the work and the life we must turn.

— Alice Walker

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 Walker

But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.

— Alice Walker

Be nobody’s darling; / Be an outcast.

— Alice Walker

You know a little drink now and then never hurt nobody, but when you can’t git started without asking the bottle, you in trouble.

— Alice Walker

Laughter isn’t even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out.

— Alice Walker

I believe that the truth about any subject only comes when all sides of the story are put together, and all their different meanings make one new one.

— Alice Walker

And I try to teach my heart not to want nothing it can’t have.

— Alice Walker

The Secret of Joy is … Resistance.

— Alice Walker

… the inner voice; the human compulsion when deeply distressed to seek healing counsel within ourselves, and the capacity within ourselves both to create this counsel and to receive it.

— Alice Walker