Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof. Alice Walker More Quotes by Alice Walker More Quotes From Alice Walker I'm not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself - then they get to say 'See, you did it yourself.' Alice Walker delight enough men Anything that forces you to act at the possible harm of your own existence is going to exact a cost. You have to then think about, "Can I pay this? What will this mean to me - to my relationships, to my family, to everybody? What is this going to take? How much of me is this going to take?" Alice Walker pay mean 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. Alice Walker real children thinking I feel I am a child that's lost its mother. I feel like a calf whose mother has gone off to slaughter. Alice Walker gone mother children The hardest part is when you're in danger yourself. You have to face what could happen and might be likely to happen to you. It's not just that you're there standing next to somebody that something bad is likely to happen to. That is a true moment of reckoning with who you really are. Alice Walker next faces might ... my mother adorned with flowers whatever shabby house we were forced to live in. Alice Walker flower mother house Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Alice Walker stars disappointment heart Helped are those too busy living to respond when they are wrongfully attacked: on their walks they shall find mysteries so intriguing as to distract them from every blow. Alice Walker mystery busy blow After all, how can a society flourish, a country attain democracy and health, children grow into intelligent beings, sensitive to the needs of an ever more fragile and endangered planet, if half it's people are kept out of the driver's seat? Alice Walker intelligent country children We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier. Alice Walker teaching believe children Not only will your teachers appear, but they will cook new foods for you. Alice Walker cooks teacher Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence - as it saves most writers who live in 'interesting' oppressive times and are not afflicted by personal immunity. Alice Walker violence writing interesting Expecting anything, living frugally in surprise. Alice Walker expecting surprise I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels. Alice Walker poet novel writing Just because I don't harass it like some peoples us know don't mean I ain't got religion. Alice Walker knows mean religion Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us. Alice Walker who-we-are language evil I feel that the ancestors are that covering that will cover me. I feel like I can only be enveloped in them spiritually and physically. Alice Walker covering ancestor feels Books became my world because the world I was in was very hard. Alice Walker reading book world HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child. Alice Walker prayer animal children But I don't know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive. Alice Walker know-how alive fighting
