black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Adrienne Rich

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 have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alive Born Delight Extraneous Giving Offered
Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.
ADRIENNE RICH

Liquid Poetry Stone Voice Wear Writing
In 1945, just at the end of World War II, the American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote a remarkable book called The Life of Poetry. In it she says that on any particular day in the world.
ADRIENNE RICH

Book Country End Immediately Poet Remarkable War World Wrote
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.
ADRIENNE RICH

Another Art Being Desire Element Existence Grief Human Life Love
It is not really about them though it targets them as consumers.
ADRIENNE RICH

Consumer Really Target Though
I cannot speak for you. Two thoughts: there is no liberation that only knows how to say ‘I’; there is no collective movement that speaks for each of us all the way through.
ADRIENNE RICH

Collective Know Liberation Movement Say Speak Thought
We must use what we have to invent what we desire.
ADRIENNE RICH

Desire Dream Invent Lose Success Use
The longer I live the more I mistrust theatricality, the false glamour cast by performance, the more I know its poverty beside the truths we are salvaging from the splitting-open of our lives. -from “Transcendental Etude
ADRIENNE RICH

False Glamour Longer Mistrust Performance Poverty Theatricality Transcendental
Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.
ADRIENNE RICH

Complicated Delusion Fake False Journey Memories Naming Past People Real
We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege
ADRIENNE RICH

Intended Moving Our Privilege Responsible Verbal Words
I think my work comes out of both an intense desire for connection and what it means to feel isolated. There’s always going to be a kind of tidal movement back and forth between the two.
ADRIENNE RICH

Connection Going Isolated Kind Mean Movement Thinking Two
The liar leads an existence of unutterable loneliness.
ADRIENNE RICH

Existence Liar Loneliness Lying Unutterable
Probably there is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between two biologically alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside the other, one of which has labored to give birth to the other.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alike Biological Bodies Charges Energy Giving Human Nature Nothing Probably Resonant Two
The mother’s battle for her child with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival.
ADRIENNE RICH

Batter Callousness Child Children Exploitation Force Mother Poverty Sickness War
What would it mean to live in a city whose people were changing each other’s despair into hope?– You yourself must change it.
ADRIENNE RICH

Change Changing Cities Despair Hope Mean

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adrienne Rich Quotes