It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.
I just feel that ‘The Color Purple,’ which was my 10th book, was a true gift from my ancestors.
I think many people in my community had very different kinds of mothers: they had mothers who acquiesced in the system of male and white-supremacist domination, and my mother never did. She just could not do it. It just wasn’t in her.
I know from having had a child, and from having been a child myself, that children will copy you.
My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.
How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.
I live a very secluded life, a very contemplative life and a very meditative one. That is my ideal life.
I cannot claim to have had a hard time publishing.
We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.
Every small positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence in the future.
I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe.
It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put – without delay, and with tenderness – back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.
The most important question in the world is, ‘Why is the child crying?’
I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.
