Alice Walker

b. 9 February 1944 · American novelist, poet & activist; author of The Color Purple

Alice Walker was born on 9 February 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, the daughter of sharecroppers. Her 1982 novel The Color Purple won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award in 1983, and her 1983 essay collection In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens gave the word womanist its currency. Power — who is told they have none, and what happens when they believe it — is a genuine and recurring subject of her work, which is precisely why this particular sentence sounds so much like her.

Traced to source

1 quote we’ve traced

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any”

Attributed

Did they really say it?

Thought Alice Walker said something else?

Type a quote you think Alice Walker said — we’ll tell you what we know, or point you to the best sources.