black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege

Adrienne Rich

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?
ADRIENNE RICH

Angry Darkest Embittered Grief Most Stricken
To read as if your life depended on it would mean to let into your reading your beliefs, the swirl of your dreamlife, the physical sensations of your ordinary carnal life; and simultaneously.
ADRIENNE RICH

Belief Depended Dreamlife Intelligent Mean Multiple Choice Physical Reading Sensation Swirl
I came to explore the wreck.
ADRIENNE RICH

Came Explore Wreck
If you teach, you see this is not true. It may be that newer generations do not worship the text as some of their elders do.
ADRIENNE RICH

Been Compared Elder Generation Teach Worship
It is not really about them though it targets them as consumers.
ADRIENNE RICH

Consumer Really Target Though
Since we’re not young, weeks have to do time for years of missing each other.Yet only this odd warp in time tells me we’re not young.
ADRIENNE RICH

Since Time Week Wrap Years Missing Young
Language is power… Language can be used as a means of changing reality.
ADRIENNE RICH

Changing Language Mean Reality Writing
There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice…In the end, I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope. My concern for my country is inextricable from my concerns as an artist.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Country Formula Human Justice m Relationship Overall Separate Simple Think
There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors. (I make up this strange, angry packet for you, threaded with love.) I think you thought there was no such place for you, and perhaps there was none then.
ADRIENNE RICH

Among Counted Down Must None Perhaps Sit Weep
[The poet] is endowed to speak for those who do not have the gift of language, or to see for those who – for whatever reasons – are less conscious of what they are living through.
ADRIENNE RICH

Endowed Gift Language Reason Risk Speak Survival Use
Despair, when not the response to absolute physical and moral defeat is, like war, the failure of imagination.
ADRIENNE RICH

Absolute Confusion Defeat Despair Failure Imagination Physical Response War
Much male fear of feminism is infantilism–the longing to remain the mother’s son, to possess a woman who exists purely for him.
ADRIENNE RICH

Exist Fear Feminism Infantilism Longing Male Mother Much Purely Remain Son
The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.
ADRIENNE RICH

Aquariums Bodies Bring Essential Human Mean More Repossession Seizing Society Women
The ocean, whose tides respond, like women’s menses, to the pull of the moon, the ocean which corresponds to the amniotic fluid in which human life begins.
ADRIENNE RICH

Correspond Men's Monsters Moon Ocean Pull Respond Women
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.
ADRIENNE RICH

Count Few Hard Important People Way
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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Brain Burn Deviant Girl Grammar Men Message Norm Standard Thinking Young

We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adrienne Rich Quotes