Cherrie Moraga

“The real oppression is the inability to imagine a future.”

“Fear is a potent political tool.”

“It is not really difference the oppressor fears so much as similarity.”

“A writer will find a way to explain the pain.”

“My lesbianism is the avenue through which I have learned the most about silence and oppression.”

“For a woman to be a lesbian in a male-supremacist, capitalist, misogynist, racist, homophobic, imperialist culture... is an act of resistance.”

“The voice that arises out of the choir of our ancestors is the most powerful voice we can discover.”

“In this country, lesbianism is a poverty — as is being brown, as is being a woman, as is being just plain poor.”

“It is this silent refusal to be visible that keeps us invisible.”

“To be a woman of color and a lesbian in this country is to be a ghost.”

“The danger lies in ranking the oppressions.”

“The revolution begins at home.”

“I am a woman with a foot in both worlds; and I refuse the split.”

“The nationalism I seek is one that decolonizes the brown and female body as it decolonizes the brown and female earth.”

“Our feminism has been forged in the crucible of conflict, not merely with the man, but with our own people.”

“Silence is the first thing that any oppressed people must overcome.”

“We do not just need to have a voice, but a way of making our voices heard.”

“We are the colored in a white country.”

“Writing is a way of ordering the chaos in my life.”