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I am a bleak heroism of words that refuse to be buried alive with the liars.

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
Bleak
Heroism
Liars
Buried
Refuse
Alive
Words

More quotes by Audre Lorde

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Divide and conquer must become define and empower.
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
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When you are a member of an out-group, and you challenge others with whom you share this outsider position to examine some aspect of their lives that distorts differences between you, then there can be a great deal of pain.
Audre Lorde
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Guilt is not a response to anger it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action.
Audre Lorde
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In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
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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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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The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.
Audre Lorde
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I soon discovered that if you keep your mouth shut, people are apt to believe you know everything, and they begin to feel freer and freer to tell you anything, anxious to show that they know something, too.
Audre Lorde
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So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.
Audre Lorde
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There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
Audre Lorde
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I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.
Audre Lorde
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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
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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.
Audre Lorde
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I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.
Audre Lorde
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What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman's face?
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.
Audre Lorde
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The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our own oppression as women.
Audre Lorde
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pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.
Audre Lorde
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Every woman I have ever known has made a lasting impression on my soul.
Audre Lorde