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
The more I use my strength in the service of my vision the less I am afraid...
It is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others-for their use and to our detriment.
...my experience with people who tried to label me was that they usually did it to either dismiss me or use me.
How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live unblinded? How much of this pain can I use?
Art is not living. It is a use of living. The artist has the ability to take that living and use it in a certain way, and produce art.
Art is not living. It is the use of living.
Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid.
In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.
Somedays, if bitterness were a whetstone, I could be sharp as grief.
One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
My fear of anger taught me nothing.
Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change.
Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.