Audre Lorde

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.

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.

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.

I 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.

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.

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

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

Your silence will not protect you.

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

Our visions begin with our desires.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.