Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that some women seek fulfillment in an unattainable future while ignoring the present reality of life.
Audre Lorde reflects on how some women may postpone their happiness by waiting for a future moment where they believe they will find peace. She emphasizes that merely existing is not enough; true living involves engaging with the present, as the stars—which symbolize aspirations or ideals—remain indifferent to one's state of being. The quote invites reflection on the importance of actively living rather than passively waiting for life to change.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about self-acceptance and mindfulness.
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.
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
I feel like the world stopped. And I got off...and then it started spinning again, but too fast for me to hop back on. I feel like I'm still trying to get a...to get some kind of foothold on living
Let us fill a cup and drink to that most noble, ridiculous, laughable, sublime figure in our lives... The Young Man Who Was. Let us drink to his dreams, for they were rainbow-colored; to his appetites, for they were strong; to his blunders, for they were huge; to his pains for they were sharp; to his time for it was brief; and to his end, for it was to become one of us.
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
What keeps life fascinating is the constant creativity of the soul.
Anyone who's looked into a newborn's innocent eyes should realize how incredible it is to be blessed with a new life.
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
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