Audre Lorde Quotes

Now that I'm older, I understand that it's up to the individual to decide who they are or what they are.

One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful as a gift, is to not ever let anybody else define me; that for me to define myself. and I think that helped me a lot in assuming a leadership position.

Self-definition and self-determination is about the many varied decisions that we make to compose and journey toward ourselves, about the audacity and strength to proclaim, create, and evolve into who we know ourselves to be. It’s okay if your personal definition is in a constant state of flux as you navigate the world.

Don't wait for people to tell you who you are. Show them.

If you don’t define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

I make me. At 18, I decided I wasn't going to have an unconstructed self ever. I was going to be the composer, the designer, the architect of me. It's been really fun.

Others will always seek to define you based on what they think you represent or who they think you are. But you have to be the one to control what you do and what you say and how you present yourself.

Nobody else can tell you what you are.

As a southern woman, we often define ourselves by who we are with. But I wanted my life to be built differently.

The gender is irrelevant; the identity is the one you should try and create for yourself by yourself, and the narrative of your own life becomes your own book.

the identity of an individual is essentially a function of her choices, rather than the discovery of an immutable attribute

I am increasingly an architect of self. I am free to will and choose. I can, through accepting my individuality... become more of my uniqueness, more of my potentiality.

I am me. I have to define myself. I'm going to stand up at the back of the train and take control of my future.

Whether it’s your taste in clothing, your needs in a relationship, or what you do for a living—don’t let anyone else be at the controls. Define yourself.

What does it mean to be an individual? What does it mean to flourish?

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are.

It may be that the most interesting American struggle is the struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and then to learn something of the value of those limits.

I never let track define me. That's something that's really important to me.

Carving out an identity for yourself is important so I'm trying to do that as well.

You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

The toddler must say no in order to find out who she is. The adolescent says no to assert who she is not.

I want to be defined by my own essence.