We are, none of us, ‘either’ mothers or daughters; to our amazement, confusion, and greater complexity, we are both.
ADRIENNE RICHIt is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
More Adrienne Rich Quotes
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The kind of poetry that interests me is intellectual and moral and political and sexual and sensual – all of that fermenting together.
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Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions – whether of sex, race, or servitude.
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To seek visions, to dream dreams, is essential, and it is also essential to try new ways of living, to make room for serious experimentation, to respect the effort even where it fails.
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Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler – for the liar – than it really is, or ought to be.
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Passion for survival is the great theme of women’s poetry.
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Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don’t know you know.
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So endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.
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he ocean on whose surface vessels (personified as female) can ride but in whose depth sailors meet their death and monsters conceal themselves.
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To conjure with the passive culture and adapt to its rules is to degrade and deny the fullness of our meaning and intention.
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Most women have not even been able to touch this anger, except to drive it inward like a rusted nail.
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We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege
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Mothers and daughters have always exchanged with each other – beyond the verbally transmitted lore of female survival.
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Responsibility to yourself means that you don’t fall for shallow and easy solutions-it means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short.
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To work and suffer is to be at home. All else is scenery.
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… this world gives no room to be what we dreamt of being
ADRIENNE RICH






