Mahy > Mahy's Quotes

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
― Alice Walker

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.”
― Alice Walker

“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

“Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate.”
― Alice Walker

“I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk.”
― Alice Walker, The Temple of My Familiar

“She was so quiet. So reflective. And she could erase herself, her spirit, with a swiftness that truly startled, when she knew the people around her could not respect it.”
― Alice Walker

“What you hope for, you also fear. ”
― Alice Walker, The Temple of My Familiar

“Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit. It? I ask. Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. But what do it look like? I ask. Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you cam feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“On Stripping Bark from Myself

(for Jane, who said trees die from it)

Because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their 'how nice she is!'
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise.

No. I am finished with living
for what my mother believes
for what my brother and father defend
for what my lover elevates
for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes
to embrace.

I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I finally understand.

Besides:

My struggle was always against
an inner darkness: I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death – to unlock life, or close it shut
forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the color
yellow
and the sun, I am happy to fight
all outside murderers
as I see I must.”
― Alice Walker, Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990 Complete

“Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.

Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.

Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.

Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.”
― Alice Walker, Everyday Use

“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

“We are all substantially flawed, wounded, angry, hurt, here on Earth. But this human condition, so painful to us, and in someways shameful- because we feel we are weak when the reality of ourselves is exposed- is made much more bearable when it is shared, face to face, in words that have expressive human eyes behind them...”
― Alice Walker

“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.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender”
― alice walker

“I have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing.”
― Alice Walker

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

“Be nobody's darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm. ”
― Alice Walker

“In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.”
― Alice Walker

“لماذا يموت الحب يا ملاكي الصغير ؟‎ ‎‏ ‏
لماذا تخبو تلك الجمرة المقدسة لتصير رمادًا برغم لهيبها الذي أحرقنا يوماً ؟
يبدأ فقدان الحب بأن نكف عن العطاء بعدها نكف عن الأخذ...”
― أحمد خالد توفيق

“إن كل إنسان مهما صغر شأنه يحوى طاقة روحية إنسانية يمكنك أن تحبها متى دنوت منها .. صحيح أن هناك أناسًا ميئوسًا منهم لا يمكن أن تحبهم مهما فعلت .. هؤلاء هم أغبياء الروح .. أصحاب الأرواح المغلقة .”
― أحمد خالد توفيق

“وكل ما في الأمر أني:
لا أصدق غير حدسي”
― محمود درويش, لا أريد لهذي القصيدة أن تنتهي

“It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“It starts so young, and I'm angry about that. The garbage we're taught. About love, about what's "romantic." Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys--depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We dont know anything about him, other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.”
― Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming

“I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around.”
― Blue Valentine

“Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories...legends and history of man's quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God's hands?”
― Dan Brown, Angels & Demons

“أتعرف ما معنى الكلمة؟
مفتاح الجنة في كلمة
دخول النار على كلمه
وقضاء الله هو كلمه
الكلمة لو تعرف حرمه زاد مزخور
...
الكلمة نور ..
وبعض الكلمات قبور
وبعض الكلمات قلاع شامخة يعتصم بها النبل البشري
الكلمة فرقان بين نبي وبغي
بالكلمة تنكشف الغمة
الكلمة نور
ودليل تتبعه الأمة .
عيسى ما كان سوى كلمة
أضاء الدنيا بالكلمات وعلمها للصيادين
فساروا يهدون العالم ..
الكلمة زلزلت الظالم
الكلمة حصن الحرية
إن الكلمة مسؤولية إن الرجل هو كلمة، شرف الله هو الكلمة”
― عبد الرحمن الشرقاوي, الحسين ثائرًا. شهيدًا

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire