Quotes About Community

there could be no happy community in which there was one unhappy child.

Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.

The world was almost at the point of forgetting what a fine time people can have helping one other. That people like to work together and to kick back after work and share their expansiveness. What would happen if our foreign policy centered on the cultivation of joy rather than pain?

you must live in the world today as you wish everyone to live in the world to come. That can be your contribution. Otherwise, the world you want will never be formed. Why? Because you are waiting for others to do what you are not doing; and they are waiting for you, and so on. The planet goes from bad to worse.

I thank everybody in this book for coming. -A.W., AUTHOR AND MEDIUM

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender" -Alice Walker

And there was no entertainment for them at night. They were too poor to own a television set. But they seemed content. Truman with his sculpting and building the recreation center. Lynne writing poems occasionally, reading them to her friends, then tearing them up.

Let us bring our attention to George's mother. She who came, weeping, and picked up the shattered pieces of her child, as black mothers have done for so long.

Our women are respected here said the father. We would never let them tramp the world as American women do. There is always someone to look after the Olinka woman. A father. An uncle. A brother or nephew. Do not be offended, sister Nettie, but our people pity women such as you who are cast out, we know not from where, into a world unknown to you, where you must the struggle all alone, for yourself.

One crying child is the rotten apple in the barrel of the tribe!

There is a way forward and yes it is with a broken heart but it is our own way collectively convened, pondered, shared.

People fussing and fighting and pointing fingers at other people, and never even looking for no peace.

She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.

tribal cloth, the magic of which is that as long as it is woven, the tribe exists; as long as you know how to weave it, so do you.

They then started to test the other children, and it was discovered that none of us had sufficient vitamin C, D, or A in our diets. We never had fruit, never had raw leafy greens, never had milk. There was plenty of this on the Island, you know, but it was all sold, every scrap of it, to the mainland, and had been since slavery time.

Instead all the women [at the National Black Feminist Organization] understood that we gathered together to assure understanding among black women, and that understanding among women is not a threat to anyone who intends to treat women fairly.

tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.

Each woman is capable of truly bringing another into the world. This we must all do for each other.

Yeah, I say. He make it up in cigarettes, sell 'em for a dime. It rot your breath, I say, but yall want to try one? Not if it make us crazy, say Sofia. It hard enough to get by without being a fool.

Folks crying and fanning and trying to keep a stray eye on the children, but they don't stare at Sofia and her sisters. They act like this the way it always done. I love folks.

But in this time we are beginning to see and hear from mothers and fathers who assume the role of Those Who Also Know. The world is getting its Elders back.

Has encontrado a Dios alguna vez en la iglesia? Yo, nunca. Solo a un puñado de gente que espera que se les manifieste. Si alguna vez he encontrado a Dios en la iglesia es porque ya lo llevaba conmigo. Y lo mismo le pasa a los demás. La gente va a la iglesia a compartir a Dios, o a buscarlo.

What makes a circle sacred is that those who show up for it are the ones who belong in it.

We are not white. We are not Europeans. We are black like the Africans themselves. And that we and the Africans will be working for a common goal: the uplift of black people everywhere.