Alice Walker

My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.

I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, 'black feminist' does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it's just... womanish.

I realized I was a country person - I'm just not used to small spaces.

I 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.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you're getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

America is not nearly done. We're only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows... what color we will be? It is all something that, maybe, our descendants - if they survive that long - will see.

Well, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you're just going to keep buying and selling things until there's nothing else to buy and sell, which means gobbling up the planet.

I love us so incredibly, insanely deeply; it's almost unbearable to see what we do to ourselves.

I'm entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they're thinking and who they are and who's hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what's the story, really?

I'm the most stubborn person I know.

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.

I love the natural world - it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that's my religion.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.

I'm sure we, the American people, are the butt of jokes by those in power.

I'm for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.

Sucking up to the biggies won't get us anywhere.

Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn't exist except as a part of everything.

Politically, the world is so confused right now - there's so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.

Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that's something that we should think about.

We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it's wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

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

I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left.

People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don't.

Horses make a landscape look beautiful.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can't have.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn't want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.

Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

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.

The most important question in the world is, 'Why is the child crying?'

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

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.

As an elder of the Americas and of the rest of the planet, it is my responsibility to care for and protect, to the best of my ability, the young.

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.

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.

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

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

My life is not to be somebody else's impact - you know what I mean?

I think America has always been polarized.

As 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.

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