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Audre Lorde Quotes about Pain

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If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That's the beginning of social protest.

If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That's the beginning of social protest.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Air, Justice
Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.74, Univ. Press of Mississippi

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Important, Deals
Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.16, Univ. Press of Mississippi

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it. ... pain will always either change or stop. Always. ... The confidence that it will change is what makes bearing it possible. So pain is fluid. It is only when you conceive of it as something static that it is unbearable.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Important, Unbearable
Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.16, Univ. Press of Mississippi

[Speaking] is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Light, Safety
Audre Lorde (1997). “The Cancer Journals”

I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain. It is important to share how I know survival is survival and not just a walk throught the rain.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Rain, Survival
Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.89, Univ. Press of Mississippi

How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live unblinded? How much of this pain can I use?

Audre Lorde
Pain, Use, Bears
Audre Lorde (1990). “Need: A Chorale for Black Women Voices : Pin”, Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press

My anger has meant pain to me but it has also meant survival, and before I give it up I'm going to be sure that there is something at least as powerful to replace it on the road to clarity.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Powerful, Giving
Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.132, Crossing Press

Pain is an event ... Suffering, on the other hand, is the nightmare reliving of unscrutinized and unmetabolized pain.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Hands, Suffering
Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.171, Crossing Press

When you are a member of an out-group, and you challenge others with whom you share this outsider position to examine some aspect of their lives that distorts differences between you, then there can be a great deal of pain.

Audre Lorde
Pain, Differences, Challenges
Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.86, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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