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Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

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
Evade
Succumb
Transcend
Deal
Deals
Pain
Important

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All writers have periods when they stop writing, when they cannot write, and this is always painful and terrible because writing is like breathing.
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If you do not learn to hate you will never be lonely enough to love easily nor will you always be brave, although it does not grow any easier. Do not pretend to convenient beliefs, even when they are righteous you will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
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If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
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When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.
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We have too often been expected to speak all things to all people and speak everyone else's position but our own.
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Even the smallest victory is never to be taken for granted. Each victory must be applauded.
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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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Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.
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The strongest lesson I can teach my son is the same lesson I teach my daughter: how to be who he wishes to be for himself.
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I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do.
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I am a bleak heroism of words that refuse to be buried alive with the liars.
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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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I am a Black Lesbian Feminist Warrior Poet Mother, stronger for all my identities, and I am indivisible.
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If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That's the beginning of social protest.
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Perhaps...I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself--a Black woman warrior poet doing my work--come to ask you, are you doing yours?
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I am on the cusp of change and the curve is shifting fast.
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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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What I leave behind has a life of its own.
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It's a struggle but that's why we exist, so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves, or their history, all over again.
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It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.
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