Thread by @monaeltahawy

“I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes — everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!” Audre Lorde (Feb. 18, 1934 - Nov. 17, 1992)

Happy Born Day #AudreLorde

📷 Penguin Classics

“No woman is responsible for altering the psyche of her oppressor, even when that psyche is embodied in another woman,” Audre Lorde, Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.

Happy Born Fay, Audre Lorde: Feb.28, 1934 in Harlem.

“Women of colour in america have grown up within a symphony of anger,at being silenced, at being unchosen,at knowing that when we survive, it is in spite of a world that takes for granted our lack of humanness,and which hates our very existence outside of its service” #AudreLorde

"What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say. What are they tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears" 1/2

"Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself - a Black woman warrior poet doing my work, come to ask you, are you doing yours?" #AudreLorde 2/2 tinyurl.com/1m8y7u3j

Photo credit above: Jack Mitchell/Getty

"Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definitions of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill."

I"t is learning how to stand alone, unpopular & sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause w/those others identified as outside the structures in order to define & seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths."

“The 60s should teach us how important it is not to...believe that revolution is a one-time event, or something that happens around us rather than inside of us. Not to believe that freedom can belong to any one group of us without the others also being free," #AudreLorde

"Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instance, it is learning to address each other’s difference w/respect." Learning From the 60s blackpast.org/african-americ…

"Gays & Lesbians of Color are different because we are embattled by reason of our sexuality & our Color, and if there is any lesson we must teach our children,it is that difference is a creative force for change, that survival & struggle for the future is not a theoretical issue"

"It is the very texture of our lives, just as revolution is the texture of the lives of the children who stuff their pockets with stones in Soweto & quickstep all the way to Johannesburg to fall in the streets from tear gas & rubber bullets in front of Anglo-American Corporation"

The above is from A Burst of Light And Other Essays
Audre Lorde (Author); Sonia Sanchez (Foreword)

Also from the above book is the quote which began this thread:

“I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes--everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!” #AudreLorde 📷 Robert Alexander/Getty Images

"I am deliberate and afraid of nothing." Happy Born Day, Audre Lorde!

I hope this thread of wisdom and fire brings you the inspiration and joy it brought me to share it.

Share your favourite #AudreLorde quotes as we celebrate her today! Love and solidarity 💜✊🏽❤️