Quote

The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.

Audre Lorde

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Poet
Poetry
Difference
Instead
Ready
Differences
Children
Rhetoric
Kill

More quotes by Audre Lorde

Image
If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
Audre Lorde
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Audre Lorde
Image
All writers have periods when they stop writing, when they cannot write, and this is always painful and terrible because writing is like breathing.
Audre Lorde
Image
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.
Audre Lorde
Image
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.
Audre Lorde
Image
Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
Audre Lorde
Image
Art is not living. It is the use of living. The artist has the ability to take the living and use it in a certain way and produce art.
Audre Lorde
Image
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.
Audre Lorde
Image
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
Image
Somedays, if bitterness were a whetstone, I could be sharp as grief.
Audre Lorde
Image
I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.
Audre Lorde
Image
You'd better name yourself, because, if you don't others will do it for you.
Audre Lorde
Image
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
Image
Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.
Audre Lorde
Image
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
Audre Lorde
Image
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
Image
One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
Audre Lorde
Image
Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
Audre Lorde