Alice Walker
Alice Walker
Alice Malsenior Walkeris an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist. She wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purplefor which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She also wrote Meridian and The Third Life of Grange Copeland, among other works...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 February 1944
CityEatonton, GA
CountryUnited States of America
children real thinking
I feel a little peculiar around the children. For one thing, they grown. And I see they think me and Nettie and Shug and Albert and Samuel and Harpo and Sofia and Jack and Odessa real old and don't know much what going on. But I don't think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.
hurt eye reality
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...
real healing self
Storytelling, you know, has a real function. The process of the storytelling is itself a healing process, partly because you have someone there who is taking the time to tell you a story that has great meaning to them. They're taking the time to do this because your life could use some help, but they don't want to come over and just give advice. They want to give it to you in a form that becomes inseparable from your whole self. That's what stories do. Stories differ from advice in that, once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you.
realizing values
As I get older, I realize that the thing I value the most is good-heartednes s.
real grief things-change
I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same, there's a real lightheartednes s about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they're not the same, ever again.
real soul misery
I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like...you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life.
friendship memorable real-friends
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
art dancers everybody nobody painters realized sarah wore writers
At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.
earth fail god nature original readers realize
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.
became covered essays events great inspired journalism poetry realized shy towards
For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn't poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.
across armies battered doors fields fists generals generation hands led shirts step trapped voice white women
They were women then My mama's generation Husky of voice Stout of step With fists as well as Hands How they battered down Doors And ironed Starched white Shirts How they led Armies Headragged Generals Across mined Fields Booby trapped
activism living rent
Activism is my rent for living on this planet.
father feels frame grew middle mind night obeying south taken terrorism white
I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like - when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn't look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that's terrorism, too.
children worry age
I know from having had a child, and from having been a child myself, that children will copy you. So, the best way to get them to read, is to read. The best way to get them to do anything is to do it yourself, and they will absolutely copy you. That way, you don't have to worry about what's supposedly age appropriate, a child will pick something up when the child is ready.