I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in

“I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.” Thus spoke Alice Walker, the sage and storyteller whose voice carries the wisdom of generations, the pain of history, and the light of renewal. In this radiant truth, she reveals the sacred power of the imagination—that divine flame within the soul which knows no chains, no borders, and no limits. To fall in love with imagination is to embrace the essence of freedom itself, for imagination is the wind of the spirit—it moves where it will, and it cannot be bound. Those who learn to love it, to trust it, and to walk with it, become creators of worlds, healers of wounds, and visionaries of what has not yet come to be.

The origin of this quote springs from Walker’s life as both artist and activist, a woman who turned struggle into song. As the author of The Color Purple, she wrote not only from intellect but from the boundless current of the imagination, which allowed her to see beauty amid suffering and possibility amid despair. Born into the fields of Georgia, scarred by poverty and discrimination, she learned early that the body may be confined by circumstance—but the mind, if nurtured by imagination, remains forever free. In her words lies the reflection of her journey: through literature and love, through pain and power, she discovered that imagination was her liberation.

To love imagination, as Walker did, is to recognize it as a living force, a free spirit that moves beyond the borders of what is known or accepted. The ancients called it the divine messenger within man—the spark of the gods, the echo of creation itself. It is imagination that built cities before stones were ever laid, that envisioned justice before it was written in law, that saw light in the darkness of ignorance. It does not obey reason’s limits, nor bend to fear’s command. It “will go anywhere, and it can do anything,” for its nature is infinite. It crosses time, heals division, and dares to create what has never existed. To fall in love with imagination is to court both wonder and danger, for it leads us beyond safety into transformation.

Consider the story of Harriet Tubman, the conductor of freedom’s railway. She was not a scholar, nor a soldier, but she was a woman whose imagination saw beyond the chains of her time. When others saw only slavery, she saw a vision of liberation—a world where her people could walk upright and free. Guided by that vision, she defied the impossible, journeying through forests and darkness, leading hundreds to safety. Her imagination became her compass, her courage, her map. She loved it, trusted it, and it did indeed “go anywhere” and “do anything.” Tubman, like Walker, knew that imagination is not fantasy—it is the seed of freedom itself.

Walker’s words also remind us that the imagination must not be feared or suppressed, as so many societies have done. Those who fear it, fear change; those who stifle it, stifle the soul. The free spirit of imagination demands space to wander—to dream new worlds, to reimagine justice, to question what is, and to call forth what could be. It is the artist’s tool, the scientist’s fuel, the visionary’s guide. To love it is to live fully—to walk hand in hand with mystery, to dwell in the realm of creation where the ordinary is remade into the extraordinary.

Yet, to love the imagination is not to lose oneself in illusion. The wise know that imagination must be both cherished and channeled. Like a river, it gives life when guided, but destroys when ignored or dammed. Alice Walker’s love was not naïve; she knew that imagination must be anchored in truth, in compassion, in justice. When guided by love, it becomes a force for healing and for hope. When guided by fear or hatred, it can destroy as easily as it creates. Thus, she calls not merely for the use of imagination, but for falling in love with it—to know it intimately, to honor its freedom, and to walk beside it with reverence.

O listener, take this teaching into your heart: to fall in love with the imagination is to awaken your divine inheritance. Feed it with stories, with silence, with curiosity, and with courage. When the world grows cold or cruel, let your imagination remind you of warmth and wonder. When despair whispers that change is impossible, let your imagination paint the dawn. For as Alice Walker teaches, imagination is not a luxury of the artist—it is the breath of the soul, the path by which humanity becomes more than it was. And if you fall deeply in love with it—if you let it guide you—you will discover that it is indeed a free spirit, one that will go anywhere, do anything, and lead you beyond the limits of the possible, into the radiant realm of what could yet be.