Audre Lorde Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

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

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Equality

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

  Audre Lorde

  Inspiring, Being Yourself, People

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

  Audre Lorde

  I Love You, Inspiring, Valentines Day

  Audre Lorde (2000). “The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde”, p.64, W. W. Norton & Company

• Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.

  Audre Lorde

  Life, Reality, Done

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.72, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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

  Audre Lorde

  Peace, Power, House

  Title of essay (1979)

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Moving, Racism, Competition

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.48, Crossing Press

• 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

  Our World, Differences, Empowering

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.112, Crossing Press

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

  Audre Lorde

  Motivational, Sleep, Feminist

• In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.

  Audre Lorde

  Differences, Growth, Progress

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.86, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.

  Audre Lorde

  Lonely, Gay, Keys

  "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name". Book by Audre Lorde, www.theguardian.com. 1982.

• 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

  Writing, Circles, Racism

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.85, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Sex, Race, Long

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.31, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• I am very, very happy for Alice Walker.

  Audre Lorde

  Literature, Very Happy, Walkers

• 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, Literature, Study

  "Sister Outsider" by Audre Lorde, ("Eye to Eye"), 1984.

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Light, Quality, Literature

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.36, Crossing Press

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

  Audre Lorde

  Men, Ties, Black

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.47, Crossing Press

• 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

  Gay, Numbers, Issues

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.128, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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

  Audre Lorde

  Why Not, Literature, Sexuality

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

  Audre Lorde

  Thinking, Giving, Would Be

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.86, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• There are lesbians, God knows... if you came up through lesbian circles in the forties and fifties in New York... who were not feminist and would not call themselves feminists.

  Audre Lorde

  New York, Circles, Feminist

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Color, Feminist, Culture

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.130, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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

  Audre Lorde

  Literature, Belief, Instantaneous

• There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

  Audre Lorde

  Mother, Teacher, Keys

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.31, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• We're supposed to see "universal" love as heterosexual. What I insist upon in my work is that there is no such thing as universal love in literature.

  Audre Lorde

  Kinky, Literature, Universal Love

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.93, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin