Quotes by Alice Walker

Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.

There is no graceful way to carry hatred.

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

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.

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

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

Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.

Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.

We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that's going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.

Wherever I have knocked, a door has opened. Wherever I have wandered, a path has appeared.

People who work hard often work too hard. ... May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap and the pause in all its forms.

Healing begins where the wound was made.

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

I don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends I can be certain of.

Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.

'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

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

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.

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

we are the ones we have been waiting for

In every life there comes a point when you have to make a decision about how you will live.

The nature of this flower is to bloom.