Alice Walker

“The savage rushing of the river seemed to be inside her head, inside her body. Even when the oarswomen, their guides, were speaking to her, she had the impression she couldn't quite hear them because of the roar. Not of the river that did indeed roar, just behind them, close to the simple shelter they'd made for her, but because of an internal roar as of the sound of a massive accumulation of words, spoken all at once, but collected over a lifetime, now trying to leave her body. As they rose to her lips, and in response to the question: Do you want to go home? she leaned over a patch of yellow grass near her elbow and threw up. All the words from decades of her life filled her throat. Words she had said or had imagined saying or had swallowed before saying to her father, dead these many years. All the words to her mother. To her husbands. Children. Lovers. The words shouted back at the television set, spreading its virus of mental confusion. Once begun, the retching went on and on. She would stop, gasping for breath, rest a minute, and be off again. Draining her body of precious fluid... Soon, exhausted, she was done. No, she had said weakly, I don't want to go home. I'll be all right now.”

“The more I wonder, the more I love.”

“And then, just when I know I can live content without Shug, just when Mr. ___ done ast me to marry him again, this time in the spirit as well as in the flesh, and just after I say, Naw, I still don't like frogs, but let's us be friends, Shug write me she's coming home. Now. Is this life or not? *I be so calm.* If she come, I be happy. If she don't I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.”

“Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the evening before.”

“The good oneswho listento womento children and the poordie too soon,their lives bedeviledby opposition:our hearts grieve for them.This was the world my father knew.A poor manhe saw good men come and mostly go;leaving behindthe stranded and bereft.People of hopes, dreams, and so muchhard work!Yearning for a futuresuddenlyforeclosed.But todayyou write me all is welleven though the admirableHugo Chavezhas died this afternoon.Never again will we hear that voiceof reasoned angerand disgustof passionate visionand of triumph.This is true.But what a lot he did in his 58 years!You say.What a mighty ruckusHugo Chavez made!This is also true.Thank you for reminding me.That though life -this never-ending loop -has passed us by todaybut carried offin deatha heroof the massesit is his spiritof fiercely outspokencariñothat is not lost.That inheritancehas gone instantlyinto the peopleto whom he listenedand it is therethat we will expect itto riseas early astomorrow;and therethatwe will encounter italwayssoon again.”

“A little love, a little buckshot, that's how I'd say handle yourself.”

“What will people say, you running off to Memphis like you don't have a house to look after?Shug say, Albert. Try to think like you got some sense. Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.Well, say Grady, trying to bring light. A woman can't git a man if peoples talk.Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh. Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh.”

“Even as I hold you, I am letting you go.”

“And there was no entertainment for them at night. They were too poor to own a television set. But they seemed content. Truman with his sculpting and building the recreation center. Lynne writing poems occasionally, reading them to her friends, then tearing them up.”

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

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

“You saying God vain? I ast.Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.”

“I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.”

“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 Ditches To discover books Desks A place for us How they knew what we MUST know Without knowing a page Of it Themselves.”

“Kate thought Yolo was of the bear spirit. The bear, according to ancient people who had known bears well, was of a loyal, generous and young-loving nature. Bear mothers were the most dedicated parents imaginable. The most fierce in protecting their young; but also the most peaceful creatures when left unmolested. People with bear spirit had a certain level feel about them: they often seemed large and strong, even if they weren't particularly. They gave off a vibe that made you want to sit near them. Not to talk, necessarily, but to feel.”

“It has been proved that the land can exist without the country - and be better for it; it has not been proved that the country can live without the land.”

“Do you know what O'Keefe Says about blue? he asked her, blowing out a cloud of smoke, warming to her voice, though he did not remember her face clearly from the opening night's exhibition.What?That it is the color that will remain after everything is destroyed.”

“He recognized her immediately when he saw her again. And what he recognized was her energy, which seemed to precede her. As if her spirit were thrusting itself forward, into the unknown; dazzled, charmed, challenged, hopeful, happy to be energized by the mysterious, loving the adrenaline rush of surprise.”

“Long as I can spell G-o-d I got somebody along.”

“This is the true wine of astonishment: "We are not over when we think we are.”

“Women have to summon courage to fulfill dormant dreams.”

“She sicker than my mama was when she die. But she more evil than my mama and that keep her alive.”

“You seem so clear about who you are. So certain that you are just right as you are, that for all your intelligence and maybe in spite of it, you never seem to need a second opinion.”

“The longer I am a writer--so long now that my writing finger is periodically numb--the better I understand what writing is; what its function is; what it is supposed to do. I learn that the writer's pen is a microphone held up to the mouths of ancestors and even stones of long ago. That once given permission by the writer--a fool, and so why should one fear?--horses, dogs, rivers, and, yes, chickens can step forward and expound on their lives. The magic of this is not so much in the power of the microphone as in the ability of the nonhuman object or animal to BE and the human animal to PERCEIVE ITS BEING.”

“Milovaný chce bejt úplně všecko. Zpíváme, tancujem, pitvoříme se, dáváme si kytky a to všecko v naději že nás někdo bude mít rád. Všimla sis někdy že stromy dělaj přesně to samý co my aby na sebe upozornily? Teda až na to že nechoděj.”

“Bůh je v tobě a vůbec ve všech lidech. S Bohem v sobě už na svět přicházíme. Ale najde ho jen ten kdo ho hledá v sobě. Někdy se Bůh projeví i dyž ho nehledáš nebo dyž nevíš co vlastně hledáš. Samej žal, Pane muj. Většinou si všicky kvůli tomu připadaj jak vonuce.”

“First time I think about the world.What the world got to do with anything, I think. Then I see myself sitting there quilting tween Shug Avery and Mr ——. Us three set together gainst Tobias and his fly speck box of chocolate. For the first time in my life, I feel just right.”

“Ain't nothing wrong with Shug Avery. She just sick. Sicker than anybody I ever seen. She sicker than my mama was when she die. But she more evil than my mama and that keep her alive.”

“She look me over from head to foot. Then she cackle. Sound like a death rattle. You sure is ugly, she say, like she ain't believed it.”

“She look so stylish it like the trees all round the house draw themself up tall for a better look.”

“Well, sometime Mr —— git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways.You ought to bash Mr —— head open, she say. Think bout heaven later.”

“All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.”

“He beat me like he beat the children. Cept he don't never hardly beat them. He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.”

“You got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can't do it for you.You got to fight them for yourself.I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don't fight, I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive.”

“You mustrun around like acrazy personorwalksedatelyhonoringthedead.”

“There is a special grief felt by the children and grandchildren of those who were forbidden to read, forbidden to question or to know.”

“She can have them, Mama," she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her.”

“She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know.”

“In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall.”

“She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.”

“It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don't mean nothing if you don't ast why you here, period”

“You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas? [...] He laughed. That is correct, Señor. It is as if ideas are made of blocks. Rigid and hard. And stories are made of a gauze that is elastic. You can almost see through it, so what is beyond is tantalizing. You can't quite make it out; and because the imagination is always moving forward, you yourself are constantly stretching. Stories are the way spirit is exercised.”

“I feel peace with the world.”

“We all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, an d out of self is what us have to hand”

“But it ain't easy, trying to do without God even if you know he ain't there, trying to do without him is a strain”

“Why you like this, huh? Why you always think you have to do things your own way? I ast your mama bout it one time, while you was in jail.What she say? ast Sofia.She say you think your way as good as anybody else's. Plus, it yours.Sofia laugh.”

“Bible say, Honor father and mother no matter what. Then after while every tune I got mad, or start to feels mad. I got sick. Felt like throwing up.Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel Nothing at all.Sofia Frown. Nothing at all?Well, sometime Mr._____ git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband I shrug my shoulders.This life soon be over.I say.Heaven last all ways”

“Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God.”

“Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored”

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.”