Alice Walker’s short stories, poems, and novels have won critical acclaim, earning her the honor of becoming the first Black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965, Walker quickly got involved with the civil rights movement. Her writing aims to explore the universality of the human experience, and her central protagonists are almost always Black women. Walker describes herself as a “womanist,” a feminist framework that focuses on women of color.
This identity, paired with her childhood experience of growing up in Georgia where Black vernacular was common and echoes of slavery and oppression were still present, is reflected in her writing on the Black experience and navigating one’s identity. Dive in to see some of Alice Walker’s best quotes.
The Color Purple
The Color Purple is Walker’s third and, perhaps, most famous novel. In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award (both for fiction), it’s been adapted into a Broadway show and two movies — the most recent being the 2023 movie adaptation.
The world is changing. It is no longer a world just for boys and men.
The Color Purple
From Alice Walker Herself
These quotes from Walker herself embody her social activism roots, encouraging all of us to always stand up for ourselves and others and asserting that sometimes happiness — doing what you love — is the best resistance.
A writer’s heart, a poet’s heart, an artist’s heart, a musician’s heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world…
Alice Walker, Mythotherapy
Resistance is the secret of joy!
Possessing the Secret of Joy
Activism is my rent for living on the planet.
Alice Walker, Goodreads
Love is the foundation of change and transformation.
Alice Walker, The Viewpoint
The Temple of My Familiar
This 1989 novel from Walker weaves together six central stories of characters whose lives intersect, exploring themes of colonization, the female experience, and the effects of diaspora. These quotes from the book remind us to always stay grounded and make sure our present self matches who we want to be.
Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want.
The Temple of My Familiar
Be careful of the stories you tell yourself, for they become the foundation of your reality.
The Temple of My Familiar
It’s not that you have to hate people to survive in this world. You just have to love yourself more.
The Temple of My Familiar
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing is a collection of poems where Walker reflects on the joys and sorrows of her personal life and the world and how to transcend our biggest challenges to ultimately heal. This quote encompasses her wish for us to keep dancing — keep healing.
The world has changed: it did not change without your prayers, without your faith, without your determination to believe in liberation and kindness; without your dancing through the years that had no beat.
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
Her first collection of nonfiction, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, consists of 36 essays. Walker examines historical and political events, other writer’s work, and her own past, all with a womanist lens.
No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens
These ten quotes encompass the best of Alice Walker but are by no means exhaustive. She’s pivotal to the American literary landscape. Which quote from Alice Walker do you love?
Want to learn more about Alice Walker? Click here to read more about her and her incredible work.
For book recommendations by Black authors, check out Bookstr’s Bookshop shelf of Beautiful Black Voices in Literature.
