Quotes by 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.”

“God is inside you and inside everybody else. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or dont know what you looking for. Trouble for most folks be God aint a he or a she, but a It.”

Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved.

Expect nothing. Live frugallyOn surprise.become a strangerTo need of pityOr, if compassion be freelyGiven outTake only enoughStop short of urge to pleadThen purge away the need.Wish for nothing largerThan your own small heartOr greater than a star;Tame wild disappointmentWith caress unmoved and coldMake of it a parkaFor your soul.Discover the reason whySo tiny human midgetExists at allSo scared unwiseBut expect nothing. Live frugallyOn surprise.

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.

Surely the earth can be savedby all the peoplewho insiston love.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they dont have any.

Listen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you dont. But more than anything else, God love admiration.You saying God vain? I ast.Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and dont notice it.What it do when it pissed off? I ast.Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and dont notice it.

Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he aint. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up the flowers, wind, water, a big rock.

Heres the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or dont know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.It? I ast.Yeah, It. God aint a he or a she, but a It.But what do it look like? I ast.Dont look like nothing, she say. It aint a picture show. It aint something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, youve found It.Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose. She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separateat all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you cant miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.Shug! I say.Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. Thats some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves em you enjoys em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything thats going, and praise God by liking what you like.God dont think it dirty? I ast.Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love? and a mess of stuff you dont. But more than anything else, God love admiration.You saying God vain? I ast.Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and dont notice it.What it do when it pissed off? I ast.Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.Yeah? I say.Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. 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?Well, us talk and talk bout God, but Im still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr. ____s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything atall.Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he aint. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind,water, a big rock.But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he dont want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.Amen

But it aint easy, trying to do without God even if you know he aint there, trying to do without him is a strain

And I dont believe you dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that Ill have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will you be.

But I dont know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesnt matter. Im not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesnt make us better, then what on earth is it for.

If youre silent for a long time, people just arrive in your mind.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

Ive found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing.

When I no longer have your heartI will not request your bodyyour presenceor even your polite conversation.I will go away to a far countryseparated from you by the sea— on which I cannot walk —and refrain even from sendinglettersdescribing my pain.