Adrienne Rich Quotes, Art Quotes, Writing Quotes

I guess what concerns me always is the need for a field, a rich compost, for any art to flourish. But however isolate or unheard you may feel, if you have the need to write poetry, are compelled to write it, you go on, whether there is resonance or not.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Art Quotes , Writing Quotes

Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler - for the liar - than it really is, or ought to be.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Liars Quotes , Lying Quotes

We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Greed Quotes , May Quotes

How shall we ever make the world intelligent of our movement? I do not think that the answer lies in trying to render feminism easy, popular, and instantly gratifying. To conjure with the passive culture and adapt to its rules is to degrade and deny the fullness of our meaning and intention.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Lying Quotes , Thinking Quotes

We might possess every technological resource... but if our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be 'revolutionary' but not transformative.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Running Quotes , Thinking Quotes

I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralyzed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something - a great deal - to do with how we live our lives.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Believe Quotes

If the imagination is to transcend and transform experience it has to question, to challenge, to conceive of alternatives, perhaps to the very life you are living at the moment.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Imagination Quotes , Challenges Quotes

The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Keys Quotes , Doors Quotes

When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you’re not in it, there’s a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Teacher Quotes , Mirrors Quotes

Over many years so many poets have touched my imagination and opened paths for me - it hardly makes sense to list them. I have always read a great deal of poetry.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Years Quotes , Imagination Quotes

I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Health Education Quotes

The [Vietnam War Memorial] Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Wall Quotes , War Quotes

As her sons have seen her: the mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-provoking; a marble brow, a huge breast, an avid cave; between her legs snakes, swamp-grass, or teeth; on her lap a helpless infant or a martyred son. She exists for one purpose: to bear and nourish the son.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Mother Quotes , Heart Quotes