Quote

I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father within/into me - to share valleys and mountains upon my body the way the earth does in hills and peaks.

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
Doe
Parts
Earth
Mountain
Peaks
Body
Share
Incorporate
Wanted
Within
Richest
Way
Upon
Valleys
Always
Woman
Mountains
Men
Father
Strongest
Mother
Hills

More quotes by Audre Lorde

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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
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The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.
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When I speak of the erotic, then I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.
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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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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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Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
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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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But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.
Audre Lorde
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The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.
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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.
Audre Lorde
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To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society
Audre Lorde
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Say what you have to say now! Don't wait until you're sending blips from the other side.
Audre Lorde
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Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.
Audre Lorde
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You are the one that you are looking for.
Audre Lorde
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I was going to die, if not sooner, then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.
Audre Lorde
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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
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You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
Audre Lorde
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Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.
Audre Lorde
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The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
Audre Lorde
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If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.
Audre Lorde