Audre Lorde Quotes

“You know how fighting fish do it? They blow bubbles and in each one of those bubbles is an egg and they float the egg up to the surface. They keep this whole heavy nest of eggs floating, and they're constantly repairing it. It's as if they live in both elements.”

Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde

Ifs Knows Whole Fighting Know How Elements Fishes Blow Heavy Surface Eggs Bubbles Floating Floats Nests Repairing

“Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.”

Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde

Way Giving Helping Names Poetry Is Nameless

“I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Knows Important Pain Speak Felt Walks Share Duty Survival Rain Intense Triumph Speak The Truth

“to that piece in each of us that refuses to be silent.”

Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde

Pieces Silent Refuse

Author:Audre Lorde

“Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.”

War Remember Difficult And Love Life And Love Trenches Dehumanization

“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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Care Next Stars Waiting Empty Opposites Corners Spots

“It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.”

Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

Doe Hands Lying Pay Symbols Substance Cherish

Book:The Black Unicorn: Poems

Source: The Black Unicorn: Poems

“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.”

World Made Stills Real Speak Differences Silence Fit Protect Seeking Contact Protected Protect You

“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Responsibility Our Lives Heard Share Cry

“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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Ifs

Author:Audre Lorde

“I am my best work - a series of road maps, reports, recipes, doodles, and prayers from the front lines.”

Inspirational Lines Prayer Fronts Series Reports Maps Recipes Best Work Road Maps

Author:Audre Lorde

“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.”

Kind Light Love Is Jewels

Author:Audre Lorde

“Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideasl The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves--along with the renewed courage to try them out.”

Trying Humans Ideas Sometimes Dream Waiting Brain Drug Wings Forgotten Recognition Combination New Ideas

Author:Audre Lorde

“[Speaking] is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.”

Ifs Has Beens Stills Whole Light Pain Dies Born Silence Judgment Safety Whole Life Harsh Oath Scrutiny Mute Visibility

Book:The Cancer Journals

Source: The Cancer Journals

“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?”

Faces Left Process Existence Accepting Dying Face To Face

“Without community, there is no liberation.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Change Community Liberation Collaboration Social Change

“For within livin structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, our feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Men Feelings Poet Structure Profit Expected Defined Pleasant Survived Linear Pastime Dehumanization

“Oppression is as American as apple pie.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Oppression Apples Pie Apple Pie

“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

People Needs Differences Economy Absolutes Profit Rejection Outsiders Surplus

“Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Feelings Knowledge Path Emotional Instinct Intuition Genuine Emotional Intelligence Hunches Human Emotions Power Of Knowledge

“Revolution is not a one time event.”

Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde

Events Revolution One Time

Author:Audre Lorde

“Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.”

Knows Reason Shapes Mouths Hunger Seeking Flesh

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.”

Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

Knows Has Beens House Black Differences Poor Masters Skills Survival Tools Definitions Circles Genuine Academic Acceptable This Society Forged Crucible

Author:Audre Lorde

“I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side”

Ifs Inspirational Writing Speak Waiting Sides Realizing Diversity Messages Social Justice Boards Complaints Cryptic Sending A Message Ouija Board

Book:The Cancer Journals

Source: The Cancer Journals

“Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.”

Sometimes Able Revolution Battle Standing Blessed Arena

Book:A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

Source: A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”

Self Feelings Chaos Strongest Erotic Sense Of Self

“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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Knows Heart Lying Universe My Heart Easier Taste Beats Yearning Threatening Spit Furious Admitting Whiteness

Author:Audre Lorde

“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.”

Self Whole Aspect Meaningful Pluck

“We recognize that all knowledge is mediated through the body and that feeling is a profound source of information about our lives”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Feelings Body Our Lives Information Source Profound

Author:Audre Lorde

“If you come as softly As wind within the trees You may hear what I hear See what sorrow sees. If you come as lightly As threading dew I will take you gladly Nor ask more of you. You may sit beside me Silent as a breath Only those who stay dead Shall remember death. And if you come I will be silent Nor speak harsh words to you. I will not ask you why, now. Or how, or what you do. We shall sit here, softly Beneath two different years And the rich earth between us Shall drink our tears.”

Ifs Years May Two Different Earth Remember Asks Speak Rich Tree Tears Wind Sorrow Drink Breaths Silent Harsh Dew Harsh Words Why Now

“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.”

Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

Has Beens Raised Craving

“The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Facts Speak Differences Silence Break Broken Bridges

“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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

People Ifs Knows Feels Believe Shows Mouths Anxious

Author:Audre Lorde

“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")”

Ifs World Needs Giving Dream Moving Spirit Promise Giving Up Core Luxury Poetry Is Our World Fountain

“... poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. 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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

Struggle Issues Feminism

Author:Audre Lorde

“Tell them about how you're never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there's always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don't speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside.”

Ifs Want Littles Persons Whole Speak Pieces One Day Mouths Silent Hotter Whole Person

“Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Trying Speak Machines Dust Grind

“I cannot shut you out the way I shut the others out, so maybe I can destroy you. Must destroy you?”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Way I Can

“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Ifs Way Action Names Ignorance Communication Protect Ultimate Guilt Response Protection Destructive Devices Impotence Continuation Not Guilty Defensiveness Feeling Guilty

“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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Needs Stills Dies Fear Silence Tyranny

“It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those other identified as outside the structures, in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make the strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

World Sometimes Order House Causes Differences Common Masters Tools Structure Stand Alone

“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.”

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Ifs Doe Enough Able Hate Belief Grows Cities Easier Lonely Brave Righteous Hate You Be Brave Convenient Shouting

“I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.”

Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

People Honesty Listening Openness

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde

May Real Faces Political Choices Games House Differences Our Lives Conditions Masters Beats Racism Tools Terror Genuine Urges Homophobia Loathing Our Choices Place And Time

Author:Audre Lorde

“We must recognize and nurture the creative parts of each other without always understanding what will be created.”

Understanding Creative Nurture

Author:Audre Lorde

“Learning not to crumple before these uncertainties fuels my resolve to print myself upon the texture of each day fully rather than forever.”

Forever Uncertainty Fuel Each Day Resolve Print Texture

Book:A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

Source: A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

“Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.”

Important Pain Deals