Adrienne Rich Quotes, Self Quotes, Numbness Quotes

Writers matter in a society to the extent that we can help that society hear its unvoiced longing, encounter its erased and disregarded selves, break with complacency, numbness, despair.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Self Quotes , Numbness 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

Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Real Quotes , Nuclear Quotes

The suppressed lesbian I had been carrying in me since adolescence began to stretch her limbs.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Sexuality Quotes , Limbs Quotes

Whatever happens with us, your body will haunt mine

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Body Quotes , Whatever Happens Quotes

You have to be free to play around with the notion that day might be night, love might be hate; nothing can be too sacred for the imagination to turn into its opposite or to call experimentally by another name. For writing is re-naming.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Hate Quotes , Writing Quotes

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, heavy with useless experience, rich with suspicion, rumour, fantasy, crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge of mere fact. In the prime of your life.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Knives Quotes , Cake Quotes

You have to give your art everything you can - I don't mean only writing, but studying other poets and poetics, thinking, reading what poets have written other than their poetry.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Art Quotes , Reading Quotes

Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Strong Women Quotes , Hard Work Quotes

Not biology, but ignorance of ourselves, has been the key to our powerlessness

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Ignorance Quotes , Keys Quotes

The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Believe Quotes , Poetry Quotes

When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Mean Quotes

We have lived with violence far too long.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Long Quotes