Audre Lorde Quotes

...When we lift our voices tiny molehills of difference become great mountains of conflict.

I can't get on girls' wavelengths at all. I think we are completely different. I don't know, maybe that's the way it should be. If we could all get along occasionally though, that would be nice.

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

We're so divided as a world that we don't often have the opportunity to sit down and talk to people who are different to us. We're so ready to always be right that we sometimes forget it's OK to listen.

Every family has differences.

A lot of problems in the society exist because we don't talk about it.

Really, it's not people who don't understand us who drive us nuts—it's when those who shouldn't, do.

It’s less the words they say than those they leave unsaid that split old friends apart.

Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.

It's amazing how much distance one truth can create between two people.

I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk.

Silence is the language of inertia.

Misunderstanding must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.

Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, Is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and wives who can't communicate, Children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, And in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up!

Silence is the demon's trap, and the more one is silenced, the more terrible the demon; but silence is also the divinity's mutual understanding with the single individual.

I want to talk to him. I want to ask him about that girl and if he loved her and still misses her. Nothing, however, exits my mouth. How well do we really let ourselves know each other? There's a long quietness until I finally break it open. It reminds me of someone breaking bread and handing it out. In my case, I hand out a question to my friend.

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence - and even start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors.

We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better.

Silence is terrible and painful only to those who have said all and have nothing more to speak of; but to those who never had anything to say— to them silence is simple and easy.

Fear is born from ignorance. We think that the other person is trying to take away something from us. But if we look deeply, we see that the desire of the other person is exactly our own desire - to have peace, to be able to have a chance to live.

I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings." -from the Fox-

Okay, I don’t like it when you walk away from me, but other than that...(Arik) Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You transcend a dimension to come here and I brush you off. I can see where that might get annoying. (Geary)

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.