Adrienne Rich Quotes, Writing Quotes, Voice Quotes

Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Writing Quotes , Voice 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

Sexist grammar burns into the brains of little girls and young women a message that the male is the norm, the standard, the central figure beside which we are all deviants, the marginal, the dependent variables. It lays the foundation for androcentric thinking, and leaves men safe in their solipsistic tunnel-vision.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Girl Quotes , Men Quotes

In America we have only the present tense. I am in danger. You are in danger.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , America Quotes , United States Quotes

One line typed twenty years ago can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint to glorify art as detachment or torture of those we did not love but also did not want to kill.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Art Quotes , Wall Quotes

Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Threat Quotes

There is nothing revolutionary whatsoever about the control of women's bodies by men. The woman's body is the terrain on which patriarchy is erected.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Men Quotes , Body Quotes

The impulse to create begins - often terribly and fearfully - in a tunnel of silence. Every real poem is the breaking of an existing silence, and the first question we might ask any poem is, What kind of voice is breaking silence, and what kind of silence is being broken?

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Real Quotes , Tunnels Quotes

Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language - this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Memories Quotes , Lying Quotes

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Warrior Quotes

Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Rejection Quotes , Males Quotes

An honorable human relationship- that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"- is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Love Quotes , Self Quotes

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Peace Quotes , Ubuntu Quotes