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

—Alice Walker

About Alice Walker

Portrait of Alice Walker

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel The Color Purple. Over the span of her career,...

More quotations from Alice Walker

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

—Alice Walker

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

—Alice Walker

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

—Alice Walker

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.

—Alice Walker

hope heroism tragedy shame heroes the world

To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps, to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love, and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrows, is always a measure of what has gone before.

—Alice Walker

History

11 May 2015 Added