Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde
Audre Lordewas an African American writer, feminist, womanist, lesbian, and civil rights activist. As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, particularly in her poems expressing anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. Her poems and prose largely dealt with issues related to civil rights, feminism, and the exploration of black female identity. In relation to white feminists in the United States, Lorde famously said, “the master's tools will...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth18 February 1934
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Audre Lorde quotes about
Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself.
silence and invisibility go hand in hand with powerlessness ...
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.
All writers have periods when they stop writing, when they cannot write, and this is always painful and terrible because writing is like breathing ...
There are many kinds of open. . . Love is a word, another kind of open. . . Take my word for jewel in your open light.
It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.
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.
In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
Those of us forged in the crucibles of difference know that survival is not an academic skill.
You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
I have died too many deaths that were not mine.
Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.
I believe one of the hardest things you can do is conquer your fears, but if you have a goal, then it's your job to open up and let it be real no matter how scary it seems.
Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.