Quote

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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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
Lips
Seeking
Adders
Sun
Gypsies
Words
Explode
Others
Gypsy
Live
Breeding
Like
Throat
Tongue

More quotes by Audre Lorde

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I am very, very happy for Alice Walker.
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Divide and conquer must become define and empower.
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Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.
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I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable.
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... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.
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Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge. They are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us. And we must key into those feelings... This is how new visions begin.
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Pain is an event ... Suffering, on the other hand, is the nightmare reliving of unscrutinized and unmetabolized pain.
Audre Lorde
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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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Even the smallest victory is never to be taken for granted. Each victory must be applauded.
Audre Lorde
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Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.
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Somedays, if bitterness were a whetstone, I could be sharp as grief.
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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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I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.
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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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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.
Audre Lorde
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If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness we give up the future of our worlds. (From Poetry is Not a Luxury)
Audre Lorde
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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
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You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
Audre Lorde
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Whenever a conscious Black woman raises her voice on issues central to her existence, somebody is going to call her strident, because they don't want to hear about it, nor us. I refuse to be silenced and I refuse to be trivialized, even if I do not say what I have to say perfectly.
Audre Lorde
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I would like to do another piece of fiction dealing with a number of issues: Lesbian parenting, the 1960's, and interracial relationships in the Lesbian and Gay community.
Audre Lorde