Top 534 Quotes & Sayings by Alice Walker - Page 5

Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.

Decide that you know what you think is good for you and go ahead and do it.

Being happy is not the only happiness.

Love yourself. Just love yourself. In fact, the love of the self cures every kind of problem you have with yourself. For instance, if someone calls you nappy-headed, it rolls right off your body, if you love nappy hair. Or if someone calls you buck-toothed or too black, that won't be a problem if you love being buck-toothed or black. If you love it, then so what. The development of self-love cures many of the ills that people suffer from.

A burnt finger remember the fire.

Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart.

In each of us, there is a little voice that knows exactly which way to go. And I learned very early to listen to it, even though it has caused so much grief and havoc, and I think that is the only answer.

Storytelling is how we survive, when there's no feed, the story feeds something, it feeds the spirit, the imagination. I can't imagine life without stories, stories from my parents, my culture. Stories from other people's parents, their culture. That's how we learn from each other, it's the best way. That's why literature is so important, it connects us heart to heart.

As I get older, I realize that the thing I value the most is good-heartednes s.

You have to steal back yourself. You have to steal back your own mind. Meditation helps in that area.

Propaganda is amazing, people can be led to believe anything.

Be compassionate to everyone. Don't just search for whatever it is that annoys and frightens you-see beyond those things to the basic human being. Especially see the child in the man or woman. Even if they are destroying you, allow a moment to see how lost in their own delusion and suffering they are.

Every soul is to be cherished, every flower is to bloom.

allowing freedom to others brings freedom to ourselves.

It is chilling to think that the same people who persecuted the wise women and men of Europe, its midwives and healers, then crossed the oceans to Africa and the Americas and tortured and enslaved, raped, impoverished, and eradicated the peaceful, Christ-like people they found. And that the blueprint from which they worked, and still work, was the Bible.

Our mothers and grandmothers ... moving to music not yet written.

the world has changed: it did not change without your prayers without your faith without your determination to believe in liberation and kindness; without your dancing through the years that had no beat.

Whenever I have knocked, a door has opened. Wherever I have wandered, a path has appeared. I have been helped, supported, encouraged and nurtured by people of all races, creeds, colors and dreams.

Anything we love can be saved.

Human compassion is equal to human cruelty, and it is up to each of us to tip the balance.

Be an outcast. Be pleased to walk alone.

We are all substantially flawed, wounded, angry, hurt, here on Earth. But this human condition, so painful to us, and in someways shameful- because we feel we are weak when the reality of ourselves is exposed- is made much more bearable when it is shared, face to face, in words that have expressive human eyes behind them.

I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way...I can't apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to... We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful...We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose.

Criticism is painful when it's not done with love.

It just seems clear to me that as long as we are all here, it's pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it.

Nature has created us with the capacity to know God, to experience God.

It's almost unbelievable where we are as a planet because people have been so afraid of rocking the boat, of putting forth what they really believe, and standing with people who need to be stood with.

Freedom, after all, is like love: the more you give to others, the more you have.

As long as the Earth can make a spring every year, I can. As long as the Earth can flower and produce nurturing fruit, I can, because I'm the Earth. I won't give up until the Earth gives up.

Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof.

When life descends into the pit I must become my own candle Willingly burning my self To light up the darkness around me.

Writing about people helps us to understand them, and understanding them helps us to accept them as part of ourselves.

If I could live as a tree, as a river, as the moon, as the sun, as a star, as the earth, as a rock, I would. ...Writing permits me to experience life as any number of strange creations.

She was so quiet. So reflective. And she could erase herself, her spirit, with a swiftness that truly startled, when she knew the people around her could not respect it.

It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of the world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.

... my mother adorned with flowers whatever shabby house we were forced to live in.

I loved meditation. I love it because that's where you find what your voice is. You cannot really find it easily in this culture. This culture is the noisiest culture ever, ever. I think the damage that it has done to people is in that realm of silencing them. They are overwhelmed by gadgets. They don't know what to think because they're so heavily programmed about what it is that they should want and should think.

She thought of how precious it was to be able to know another person over many years. There was incomparable richness in it.

If you want to have a life that is worth living, a life that expresses your deepest feelings and emotions, and cares and dreams, you have to fight for it.

I think America has always been polarized... It's a racist country and it has always been.

I'm not [a Buddhist]. The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The teachings can help you, but really, we're all here with the opportunity the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that...I'm just not interested in labels. I find all of them constrictive. They're hard to wear. And they're hard to wear because we're always - hopefully - growing.

War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.

no person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.

Women have to summon courage to fulfill dormant dreams.

The more I wonder, the more I love.

You must learn to love only that which cannot be stolen.

The earth is for joy, and dancing is a big part of that. And you dance with nature. Nature is always dancing. If you're not harassing it and killing it and mutilating it, nature is dancing. That's what the leaves are doing when the wind blows through them. We live in a magical wonderful universe. And just spoil it while thinking we can at some point go to heaven or some other planet.

Helped are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.

Healing cannot be done by settling a score.

My mother had handed down respect for the possibilities...and the will to grasp them.

I'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.

I am not interested in being a role model, or in fulfilling the expectations of others. I know I am of most use to others and to myself by being this unique self: Nature, I have noticed, is not particularly devoted to copies, and human beings needn't be either.

I have a lot of faith in us. I have a lot of faith in humanity. It's based, though, on my own life; I've come too far to be a pessimist.

Ignorance, arrogance, and racism have bloomed as Superior Knowledge in all too many universities.

We writers - we're the snowflakes of the literary world. We each have our own shape.

If I'm killed - if I'm removed - there is nowhere else for me to go but to my ancestors.

I write not only what I want to read...I write all the things I should have been able to read.

A grown child is a dangerous thing.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it cant have.

What you hope for, you also fear.