Alice Walker: Writers [on Writing]

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books. I could not have Possessing the Secret of Joy (about a woman who is genitally mutilated)  without it; writing The Temple of my Familiar (my "great vision" novel of how the world got to be the way it is) would have been impossible. The Color Purple owes much of its humor and playfulness to the equanimity of my mind as I committed myself to a routine, daily practice. 

Alice Walker, Metta to Burial and Other Marvels: A Poet's Experience of Meditation