Change is the immediate responsibility of each of us, wherever and however we are standing, in whatever arena we choose. Audre Lorde More Quotes by Audre Lorde More Quotes From Audre Lorde The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. Audre Lorde powerhousepeace ... 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. Audre Lorde namesdreamideas If you don’t define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive Audre Lorde define-yourselffantasyalive I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival. Audre Lorde caringselfbelieve I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. Audre Lorde wantlongpeople Art is not living. It is the use of living. The artist has the ability to take the living and use it in a certain way and produce art. Audre Lorde usewayart ... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. Audre Lorde differencessilence June Jordan once said something which is just wonderful. I'm paraphrasing her-that her function as a poet was to make revolution irresistible. Well o.k. that is the function of us all, as creative artists, to make the truth, as we see it irresistible. Audre Lorde junecreativeartist For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, beautiful and tough as chestnut stanchions against our nightmare of weakness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling Audre Lorde creativitydarkbeautiful What do we want from each other Audre Lorde storieswant Anger is loaded with information and energy. Audre Lorde informationangerenergy 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 Audre Lorde diversitywritinginspirational The oppression of women knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but that does not mean it is identical within those boundaries. Audre Lorde oppressiondoemean the fear of death is that you are dying too soon. Nobody wants to, but at the point that you die you can pray that you are no longer the same person. I pray that when I am about to die I will not be the same person that I am now. Audre Lorde dyingprayingwant 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. Audre Lorde realjobsbelieve 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. Audre Lorde equalityemotionalpeace Without community, there is no liberation...but community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist. Audre Lorde differencescommunitymean We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way. Audre Lorde eroticmovingthinking For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. Audre Lorde luxuryexistencepoetry-is The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never allow us to bring about genuine change. Audre Lorde gameshousemay
