Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture. "

Related Quotes:

" Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism. "

Audre Lorde

Quality

Black

Step

" Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only in sexual terms. "

" When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. "

" Art is not living. It is the use of living. "

" There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt. "

" 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. "

" But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That's what our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it's the same work, just different pieces of ourselves doing it. "

" Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever. "

" Your silence will not protect you. "

" 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. "

" Attend me, hold me in your muscular flowering arms, protect me from throwing any part of myself away. "

Audre Lorde

Myself

Protect

" When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid. "

" 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. "

" The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions. "

" Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat. "

" It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. "

Audre Lorde

Differences

Divide

" 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

Black

Women

" If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive. "

Audre Lorde

Alive

Myself

" Black women are programmed to define ourselves within this male attention and to compete with each other for it rather than to recognize and move upon our common interests. "

" But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women. "

" Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men. "

" It's possible to take that as a personal metaphor and then multiply it to a people, a race, a sex, a time. If we can keep this thing going long enough, if we can survive and teach what we know, we'll make it. "

" When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak. "

" The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference. "

" The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. "

" Our visions begin with our desires. "

" The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. "

" In other words, I would be giving in to a myth of sameness which I think can destroy us. "

Audre Lorde

Destroy

Giving

" I can't really define it in sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too? "

" The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. "