Adrienne Rich Quotes, Song Quotes, Art Quotes

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Song Quotes , Art Quotes

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Success Quotes , Dream 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.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Years Quotes , Imagination Quotes

Weather abroad and weather in the heart alike come on Regardless of prediction.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Heart Quotes , Weather Quotes

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Fake People Quotes , Memories 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

One does not give birth in a void, but rather in a cultural and political context. Laws, professional codes, religious sanctions, and ethnic traditions all affect women's choices concerning childbirth.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Religious Quotes , Law Quotes

No one sleeps in this room without the dream of a common language.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Dream Quotes , Sleep Quotes

...you look at me like an emergency

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Looks Quotes , Emergencies Quotes

I am always interested in the ways of scoring the sound of the poem, especially a poem with long lines. Spaces within a line, double colons, slashes, are indications of pause, of breath, of urgency, they are not metrically exact as in a musical notation but they serve (I hope) to make the reader think about the sound of the poem - just as traffic symbols, when driving, make us almost unconsciously aware of a steep hill, an intersection, an icy bridge etc.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Bridges Quotes

The moment when a feeling enters the body/ is political. This touch is political

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Political Quotes , Feelings Quotes

In a world where language and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Silence Quotes , World Quotes

A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you... where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Desire Quotes , Might Quotes

I long to create something that can't be used to keep us passive: I want to write a script about plumbing, how every pipe is joined to every other.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Knowledge Quotes , Writing Quotes

I wanted him [my father] to cherish and approve of me, not as he had when I was a child, but as the woman I was, who had her own mind and had made her own choices.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Children Quotes , Father Quotes

Grief held back from the lips wears at the heart; the drop that refused to join the river dried up in the dust.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Grief Quotes , Heart Quotes

The words are purposes./The words are maps./I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Damage Quotes , Purpose Quotes

If I cling to circumstances I could feel not responsible. Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end.

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Loser Quotes , Responsible Quotes

Behind all art is an element of desire...Love of life, of existence, love of another human being, love of human beings is in some way behind all art — even the most angry, even the darkest, even the most grief-stricken, and even the most embittered art has that element somewhere behind it. Because how could you be so despairing, so embittered, if you had not had something you loved that you lost?

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Art Quotes , Grief Quotes

No one ever told us we had to study our lives,make of our lives a study, as if learning natural historyor music, that we should beginwith the simple exercises firstand slowly go on tryingthe hard ones, practicing till strengthand accuracy became one with the daringto leap into transcendence, take the chance of breaking down in the wild arpeggioor faulting the full sentence of the fugue.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adrienne Rich Quotes , Exercise Quotes , Simple Quotes