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What is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?

Audre Lorde

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Audre Lorde
Age: 58 †
Born: 1934
Born: February 18
Died: 1992
Died: November 17
Essayist
Feminist
Librarian
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Audre Geraldine Lorde
Face
Embraced
Faces
Dealt
Process
Possibly
Death
Accept
Left
Dying
Power
Afraid
Ever
Accepting
Life
Existence

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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
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Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
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... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.
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Differences must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.
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The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference. . . .
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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.
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It is not the destiny of Black America to repeat white America's mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life.
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I believe one of the hardest things you can do is conquer your fears, but if you have a goal, then it's your job to open up and let it be real no matter how scary it seems.
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I soon discovered that if you keep your mouth shut, people are apt to believe you know everything, and they begin to feel freer and freer to tell you anything, anxious to show that they know something, too.
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The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. . . .
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Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.
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One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
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I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.
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Tell them about how you're never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there's always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don't speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside.
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To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society
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I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.
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Poetry is not a luxury.
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I stand here as a black lesbian feminist, having been invited to comment within the only panel at this conference where the input of black feminists and lesbians is represented. What this says about the vision of this conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism and homophobia are inseparable. . . .
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But, on the other hand, I get bored with racism too and recognize that there are still many things to be said about a Black person and a White person loving each other in a racist society.
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I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.
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