Alice Walker quote: "Many readers fail to realize this, but 'The Color Purple' is a theological text. It is about the reclamation of one's original God: the earth and nature."

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this tim...
ALICE WALKER

I don't call myself a Buddhist. I'm a free spirit. I believe I'm here on earth to admire...
ALICE WALKER

It is because I recognize the brutality with which my own multi-branched ancestors have been treated...
ALICE WALKER

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

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows - pillows stuffed with fo...
ALICE WALKER

How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house th...
ALICE WALKER

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any
ALICE WALKER

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.
ALICE WALKER

Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make you...
ALICE WALKER

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

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that tre...
ALICE WALKER

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some...
ALICE WALKER

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways,...
ALICE WALKER

The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native gro...
ALICE WALKER

She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch...
ALICE WALKER

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

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that t...
ALICE WALKER

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can writ...
ALICE WALKER

It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the childr...
ALICE WALKER

Listen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, G...
ALICE WALKER

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
ALICE WALKER

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than bl...
ALICE WALKER

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previou...
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

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative sp...
ALICE WALKER

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conceptio...
ALICE WALKER

Somewhere in the bible it say Jesus hair was like lamb's wool, I say. Well, say Shug, if he came to ...
ALICE WALKER

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

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that tre...
ALICE WALKER

As long as the Earth can make a spring every year, I can. As long as the Earth can flower and produc...
ALICE WALKER

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

In search of my mother's garden I found my own.
ALICE WALKER

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never de...
ALICE WALKER

It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black wo...
ALICE WALKER

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than...
ALICE WALKER

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to re...
ALICE WALKER

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

I'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be sav...
ALICE WALKER

The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose ...
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

As an elder of the Americas and of the rest of the planet, it is my responsibility to care for and p...
ALICE WALKER

I wanted in my lifetime to vote for a radical Native American woman, since my vision of any future t...
ALICE WALKER

Propaganda is amazing. People can be led to believe anything.
ALICE WALKER

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money a...
ALICE WALKER

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.
ALICE WALKER

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you've become a baby again and the rest of y...
ALICE WALKER

Life is abundant, and life is beautiful. And it's a good place that we're all in, you know, ...
ALICE WALKER

I'm not lesbian; I'm not bisexual; I'm not straight. I'm just curious.
ALICE WALKER

In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.
ALICE WALKER

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

You don't always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that's plenty.
ALICE WALKER

I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never...
ALICE WALKER

I'm entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people...
ALICE WALKER

Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowl...
ALICE WALKER

I consider the fact that thousands of children die each day from starvation and a lack of medicine a...
ALICE WALKER

Horses make a landscape look beautiful.
ALICE WALKER

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.
ALICE WALKER

I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of...
ALICE WALKER

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice ...
ALICE WALKER

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.
ALICE WALKER

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you unders...
ALICE WALKER

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

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasm...
ALICE WALKER

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
ALICE WALKER

If you want to have a life that is worth living, a life that expresses your deepest feelings and emo...
ALICE WALKER

A good model of how to 'work with the enemy' internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in h...
ALICE WALKER

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.
ALICE WALKER

It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older ...
ALICE WALKER

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. ...
ALICE WALKER

I met Howard Zinn in 1961, my first year at Spelman College in Atlanta. He was the tall, rangy, good...
ALICE WALKER

So many killings of black men in my lifetime. The physical shock is astounding.
ALICE WALKER

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically act...
ALICE WALKER

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways,...
ALICE WALKER

War contributes greatly to global warming, which shouldn't surprise us. All those bombs going of...
ALICE WALKER

Well, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you're just going to keep buying and ...
ALICE WALKER

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

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
ALICE WALKER

Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening....
ALICE WALKER

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expres...
ALICE WALKER

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative sp...
ALICE WALKER

Part of my ancestry is Cherokee. And in that tradition, you become an adult when you're 52.
ALICE WALKER

I gave my archive to Emory University because there's a really dear friend who teaches there, Ru...
ALICE WALKER

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.
ALICE WALKER

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and ...
ALICE WALKER

I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United Stat...
ALICE WALKER

Women have to summon up courage to fulfill dormant dreams.
ALICE WALKER

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sus...
ALICE WALKER

Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance th...
ALICE WALKER

It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put - without delay, and with tender...
ALICE WALKER

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, ...
ALICE WALKER

America is not nearly done. We're only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows... ...
ALICE WALKER

Horses make a landscape look beautiful
ALICE WALKER

I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be th...
ALICE WALKER

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

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

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.
ALICE WALKER

I think that wealthy white people would like to have a country that resembles the Fifties, when all ...
ALICE WALKER

Since the time of the witch burnings, the grandmothers and the healers and the midwives have been sy...
ALICE WALKER

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person ...
ALICE WALKER

I think Americans generally are not used to working very hard, in terms of working for the collectiv...
ALICE WALKER

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

I used to meditate all the time in bed. That was when I was raising my daughter, and I'd get her...
ALICE WALKER

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I wa...
ALICE WALKER

On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my...
ALICE WALKER

I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here...
ALICE WALKER

...have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to s...
ALICE WALKER

I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find th...
ALICE WALKER

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but ...
ALICE WALKER

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader - or any person - in the world, wi...
ALICE WALKER

The absence of models, in literature as in life, to say nothing of painting, is an occupational haza...
ALICE WALKER

What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections ma...
ALICE WALKER

HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and t...
ALICE WALKER

My parents were both storytellers. They always spoke with metaphorical richness.
ALICE WALKER

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head...
ALICE WALKER

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a heal...
ALICE WALKER

I believe you mother everybody, not in a cloying, hovering way, but taking care of what is around yo...
ALICE WALKER

One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today, yo...
ALICE WALKER

Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who succes...
ALICE WALKER

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears
ALICE WALKER

Activism is my rent for living on this planet.
ALICE WALKER

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

People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, b...
ALICE WALKER

The creative mind is not a mind full of stuff.
ALICE WALKER

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative sp...
ALICE WALKER

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some d...
ALICE WALKER

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

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.
ALICE WALKER

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.
ALICE WALKER

All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world
ALICE WALKER

It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how I come...
ALICE WALKER

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn't poetry. And then I realized that t...
ALICE WALKER

Aside from the fact that they say it's unhealthy, my fat ain't never been no trouble. Mens always ha...
ALICE WALKER

If you're silent for a long time, people just arrive in your mind.
ALICE WALKER

I've learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.
ALICE WALKER

Hard times' is a phrase the English love to use, when speaking of Africa. And it is easy to forget t...
ALICE WALKER

In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.
ALICE WALKER

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back t...
ALICE WALKER

When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.
ALICE WALKER

In the summer of 1966, I went to Mississippi to be in the heart of the civil-rights movement, helpin...
ALICE WALKER

I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like - when your father co...
ALICE WALKER

Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And ...
ALICE WALKER

Once you feel loved by the universe, you're already accepted, and you're not really concerne...
ALICE WALKER

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh pe...
ALICE WALKER

Everything want to be loved.
ALICE WALKER

Listen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything. God lo...
ALICE WALKER

All these faces look happy enough, say Shug. Big and beefy. Eyes clear and innocent, like they don't...
ALICE WALKER

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.
ALICE WALKER

Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to ...
ALICE WALKER

Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.
ALICE WALKER

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.
ALICE WALKER

They were women then My mama's generation Husky of voice Stout of step With fists as well as Hands H...
ALICE WALKER

God is inside you and inside everybody else. But only them that search for it inside find it. And so...
ALICE WALKER

It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the childr...
ALICE WALKER

It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black wo...
ALICE WALKER

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can writ...
ALICE WALKER

Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength - in search of my mother's gard...
ALICE WALKER

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

It is crucial that young people are taught sustainable child production and rearing.
ALICE WALKER

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of u...
ALICE WALKER

I started writing as a child. But I didn't think of myself actually writing until I was in colle...
ALICE WALKER

He say, Celie, tell me the truth. You don't like me cause I'm a man?
I blow my nose. take off t...
ALICE WALKER

I’m mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can’t even bring themselves...
ALICE WALKER

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at ...
ALICE WALKER

My mother had bought a sewing machine for me. When I went away to college, she gave me a sewing mach...
ALICE WALKER

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

When we have pleaded for understanding, our character has been distorted; when we have asked for sim...
ALICE WALKER

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

She standing there looking me straight in the eye. She look tired and her jaws full of air.
I s...
ALICE WALKER

God is different to us now, after all these years in Africa. More spirit than ever before, and more ...
ALICE WALKER

His little whistle sound like it lost way down a jar, and the jar in the bottom of the creek. P. 64
ALICE WALKER

I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you ...
ALICE WALKER

Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You co...
ALICE WALKER

Like I said...fine with me.
ALICE WALKER

Who am I to tell her who to love? My job just to love her good and true myself. P. 237
ALICE WALKER

Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.
ALICE WALKER

The Olinka girls do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought this...
ALICE WALKER

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that tre...
ALICE WALKER

Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You co...
ALICE WALKER

The more I wonder, the more I love.
ALICE WALKER

Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He ...
ALICE WALKER

Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.
ALICE WALKER

A grown child is a dangerous thing.
ALICE WALKER

People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always ...
ALICE WALKER

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my c...
ALICE WALKER

Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You co...
ALICE WALKER

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

And I thank God let me gain understanding enough to know love can't be halted just cause some people...
ALICE WALKER

A writer's heart, a poet's heart, an artist's heart, a musician's heart is always breaking. It is th...
ALICE WALKER

Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let 'em know who got the up...
ALICE WALKER

All my life I had to fight... But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house... I loves Harpo...
ALICE WALKER

I had assumed that the Earth, the spirit of the Earth, noticed exceptions -- those who wantonly dama...
ALICE WALKER

The longer I am a writer--so long now that my writing finger is periodically numb--the better I unde...
ALICE WALKER

Mr. President how long must women wait to get their liberty? Let us have the rights we deserve.
ALICE PAUL

I think fashion can always date, but I think if a woman has elegance, she doesn't date.
ALICE TEMPERLEY

The decisions you make are a choice of values that reflect your life in every way.
ALICE WATERS

When the wind blows through a wood, its mass is cut and closed by every leaf, forming a train of jit...
ALICE OSWALD

After I dropped out of college at the age of 19, I became a mortgage broker, and when I went back to...
ALICE DREGER

Many readers fail to realize this, but 'The Color Purple' is a theological text. It is about the reclamation of one's original God: the earth and nature.

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Alice Walker

Many readers fail to realize this, but 'The Color Purple' is a theological text. It is about the reclamation of one's original God: the earth and nature.

Alice Walker

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