Audre Lorde Quotes - Page 4

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• From my membership in all of these groups I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.

  Audre Lorde

  Children, Color, Differences

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• If you can't change reality, change your perceptions of it.

  Audre Lorde

  Reality, Perception, Can't Change

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• June Jordan once said something which is just wonderful. I'm paraphrasing her-that her function as a poet was to make revolution irresistible. Well o.k. that is the function of us all, as creative artists, to make the truth, as we see it irresistible.

  Audre Lorde

  Artist, June, Creative

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.198, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• [Speaking] is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.

  Audre Lorde

  Pain, Light, Safety

  Audre Lorde (1997). “The Cancer Journals”

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• I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect....what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? ...Death on the other hand, is the final silence...my silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.

  Audre Lorde

  Believe, Hands, Silence

  Essay "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", in Sister Outsider, www.csusm.edu. December 28, 1977.

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• What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence.

  Audre Lorde

  Fear, Silence, Needs

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.41, Crossing Press

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• And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive

  Audre Lorde

  Hope, Morning, Fear

  Audre Lorde (1995). “The Black Unicorn: Poems”, p.25, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I started writing because I had a need inside of me to create something that was not there

  Audre Lorde

  Writing, Needs

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• I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  Audre Lorde (2000). “The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde”, p.73, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.

  Audre Lorde

  Hatred, Black History, Doe

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• Once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. . . .

  Audre Lorde

  Joy, Empowering, Erotic

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• The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black goddess within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.

  Audre Lorde

  Dream, Father, Thinking

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• The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

  Audre Lorde

  Peace, Equality, Emotional

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.56, Crossing Press

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• What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman's face?

  Audre Lorde

  Faces, Oppression, Print

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• Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures.

  Audre Lorde

  Wall, Guilt, Bricks

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.124, Crossing Press

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• We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other.

  Audre Lorde

  Black, Literature, Study

  "Sister Outsider" by Audre Lorde, ("Eye to Eye"), 1984.

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• Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.

  Audre Lorde

  Feet, Bird, Tree

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• If you don’t define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive

  Audre Lorde

  Alive, Fantasy, Define Yourself

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• One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.

  Audre Lorde

  Pay, Awareness

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.15, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Silence has never brought us anything of worth.

  Audre Lorde

  Silence

  Audre Lorde (1997). “The Cancer Journals”

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• pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.

  Audre Lorde

  Erotic, Feelings, Denial

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.54, Crossing Press

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• I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Writing, Diversity

  Audre Lorde (1997). “The Cancer Journals”

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• I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.

  Audre Lorde

  Honesty, People, Listening

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.53, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I am my best work - a series of road maps, reports, recipes, doodles, and prayers from the front lines.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Prayer, Maps

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• My anger has meant pain to me but it has also meant survival, and before I give it up I'm going to be sure that there is something at least as powerful to replace it on the road to clarity.

  Audre Lorde

  Pain, Powerful, Giving

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.132, Crossing Press

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