Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she published the novel The Color Purple, for which she won the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Explore our collection of Alice Walker Quotes that will surely change your perspective about life.
Activism is my rent for living on the planet.
– Alice Walker
Alice Walker Quotes
1. “Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.” – Alice Walker
2. “Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.” – Alice Walker
3. “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.” – Alice Walker
4. “People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” – Alice Walker
5. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
6. “The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” – Alice Walker
7. “When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.” – Alice Walker
8. “I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.” – Alice Walker
9. “What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.” – Alice Walker
10. “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” – Alice Walker
11. “Surely the earth can be saved by all the people who insist on love.” – Alice Walker
12. “If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.” – Alice Walker
13. “Too much respect for people who are not respectful to you is a sure sign of insecurity.” – Alice Walker
14. “This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.” – Alice Walker
15. “Ignorance, arrogance, and racism have bloomed as Superior Knowledge in all too many universities.” – Alice Walker
16. “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.” – Alice Walker
17. “Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want.” – Alice Walker
18. “The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.” – Alice Walker
19. “If you lie to yourself about your own pain, you will be killed by those who will claim you enjoyed it.” – Alice Walker
20. “The world is changing. It is no longer a world just for boys and men.” – Alice Walker
21. “It’s an awful feeling to write something that you feel is really important … and to feel that you’re being published by people who really don’t get it and/or don’t really care.” – Alice Walker
22. “Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate.” – Alice Walker
23. “Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” – Alice Walker
24. “Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.” – Alice Walker
25. “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.” – Alice Walker
26. “Nature has created us with the capacity to know God, to experience God.” – Alice Walker
27. “Writing is not different from life—you want variety, you want refreshment, and you want balance.” – Alice Walker
28. “Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.” – Alice Walker
29. “The most healthy thing is to be true to your own self, but also, that you have a right to express what you see and what you feel and what you think. To be bold.” – Alice Walker
30. “The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.” – Alice Walker
31. “Horses make a landscape look beautiful.” – Alice Walker
32. “Criticism is painful when it’s not done with love.” – Alice Walker
33. “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.” – Alice Walker
34. “Part of what existence means to me is knowing the distance between what I am now and what I was then.” – Alice Walker
35. “Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” – Alice Walker
36. “Be an outcast. Be pleased to walk alone.” – Alice Walker
37. “Human compassion is equal to human cruelty, and it is up to each of us to tip the balance.” – Alice Walker
38. “Decide that you know what you think is good for you and go ahead and do it.” – Alice Walker
39. “Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.” – Alice Walker
40. “There is no graceful way to carry hatred.” – Alice Walker
