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Our poems formulate the implications of ourselves, what we feel within and dare make real (or bring action into accordance with), our fears, our hopes, our most cherished terrors.

— Audre Lorde Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

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Source: p. 39
Work: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, 1984
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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All our children are outriders for a queendom not yet assured.

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Rape is not aggressive sexuality, it is sexualized aggression.

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Narcissism comes not out of self-love but out of self-hatred.

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The need for sharing deep feeling is a human need.

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The knowledge of fear can help make us free.

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Difference does not have to be threatening.

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One oppression does not justify another.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

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Topics

Poetry

More quotes by Audre Lorde

Oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

There is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

We are jointly responsible for the care and raising of the young, since that they be raised is a function, ultimately, of the species.

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In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

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Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

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Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

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I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Audre Lorde (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.