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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
Lourdes
Healing
Looking

More quotes by Audre Lorde

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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.
Audre Lorde
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It is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others-for their use and to our detriment.
Audre Lorde
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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
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When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.
Audre Lorde
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One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
Audre Lorde
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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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For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it.
Audre Lorde
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. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are-until the poem-nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt.
Audre Lorde
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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.
Audre Lorde
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You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
Audre Lorde
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The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.
Audre Lorde
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Some words live in my throat breeding like adders. Others know sun seeking like gypsies over my tongue to explode through my lips
Audre Lorde
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Raising Black children — female and male — in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. And in order to survive they must let go. This is what mothers teach — love, survival — that is, self-definition and letting go.
Audre Lorde
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Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.
Audre Lorde
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Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
Audre Lorde
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Every woman I have ever known has made a lasting impression on my soul.
Audre Lorde
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We are powerful because we have survived
Audre Lorde
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I am very, very happy for Alice Walker.
Audre Lorde
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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. . . .
Audre Lorde
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How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How a sound comes into a word, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open. Love is a word another kind of open — As a diamond comes into a knot of flame I am black because I come from the earth's inside. Take my word for jewel in your open light.
Audre Lorde