When my grandmother died, I realized that even if I had millions of dollars, I couldn't find her anywhere on earth. My next thought was that I would die. I looked at my life and thought, "I'm afraid to die." I concluded that whether I was afraid or not, I would die. It was one of the most important crossroads in my life, once I realized that no matter what, I would do this thing, the next step was to think, "If I am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing - dying - is it possible that I could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?"
When I want to think about what would be the right thing to do, the fair thing to do, the wise thing to do, I can just think of my grandmother. I can always hear her say, "Now sister, you know what's right. Just do right!"
Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. ... It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal and that you are a paralytic.
What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.
I was told many years ago by my grandmother who raised me: If somebody puts you on a road and you don't feel comfortable on it and you look ahead and you don't like the destination and you look behind and you don't want to return to that place, step off the road.
My great-great-great-grandmother walked as a slave from Virginia to Eatonton, Georgia... It is in memory of this walk that I chose to keep and to embrace my "maiden" name, Walker.
People have often told me that one of their strongest childhood memories is the scent of their grandmother's house. I never knew my grandmothers, but I could always count of the Bookmobile.
The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon. They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England.
The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.
Back then, a few doilies and napkins were all that a lot of women had. In the little house where I grew up, the pillowcases my grandmother embroidered were the only things of beauty.