48 Quotes by Faith Ringgold

I had something I was trying to say and sometimes the message is an easy transmission and sometimes it’s a difficult one but I love the power of saying it so I’m gonna do it whether it’s hard or easy.

I always knew I wanted to be somebody. I think that’s where it begins. People decide, “I want to be somebody. I want to make a contribution. I want to leave my mark here.” Then different factors contribute to how you will do that.

When they’re looking at my work, they’re looking at a painting and they’re able to accept it better because it is also a quilt.

Paintings, people really don't understand... They don't really get paintings. Quilts they do understand because everybody has a quilt in their house.

Art is a form of experience of the person, the place, the history of the people, and as black people, we are different. We hail from Africa to America, so the culture is mixed, from the African to the American. We can't drop that. It's reflected in the music, the dance, the poetry, and the art.

I have always wanted to tell my story - or, more to the point, my side of the story.

There were a lot of stop signs in my life... People telling you what to do, when to do it, and so on.

I was functioning in a time when people were struggling, and they knew they had to struggle, and I was a part of that struggle. It wasn't just women.

The reason why I began making quilts is because I wrote my autobiography in 1980 and couldn't get it published because I wanted to tell my story, and my story didn't appear to be appropriate for African-American women.