We are all in the process of becoming.
AUDRE LORDEWe are all in the process of becoming.
AUDRE LORDEI have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
AUDRE LORDEWe must constantly encourage ourselves and each other to attempt the heretical actions that our dreams imply and so many of our old ideas disparage.
AUDRE LORDEIf they cannot love and resist at the same time, they probably will not survive.
AUDRE LORDEI am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
AUDRE LORDEYou cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.
AUDRE LORDEWhat you hear in my voice is fury, not suffering. Anger, not moral authority.
AUDRE LORDEUnless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.
AUDRE LORDEInstitutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.
AUDRE LORDEWe are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about survival and growth.
AUDRE LORDEIf I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That’s the beginning of social protest.
AUDRE LORDEYou need to reach down and touch the thing that’s boiling inside of you and make it somehow useful.
AUDRE LORDEWhen 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.
AUDRE LORDEWomen are powerful and dangerous.
AUDRE LORDEI 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 LORDEI wish to raise a Black man who will recognize that the legitimate objects of his hostility are not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs him to fear and despise women as well as his own Black self.
AUDRE LORDE