black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Adrienne Rich

In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the culture.
ADRIENNE RICH

Culture Interstices Language Lying Powerful Secret
Life on the planet is born of woman.
ADRIENNE RICH

Born Inspirational Life Planet Rich Life
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
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
Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don’t know you know.
ADRIENNE RICH

Dream Know Like Poem Put
In a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.
ADRIENNE RICH

Aquifer Collective History Rupture Secret Spiritual Voice
Across the curve of the earth, there are women getting up before dawn, in the blackness before the point of light, in the twilight before sunrise; there are women rising earlier than men and children to break the ice, to start the stove, to put up the pap.
ADRIENNE RICH

Blackness Children Dawn Light Running Twilight Women
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
Abortion is violence; a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself.
ADRIENNE RICH

Abortion Deep Desperate First Herself Violence Woman
It can speak to people who have themselves felt like monsters and say: you are not alone, this is not monstrous. It can disturb and enrapture.
ADRIENNE RICH

Alone Disturb Enrapture Monster Monstrous People Speak Themselves
We who were loved will never unlive that crippling fever.
ADRIENNE RICH

Crippling Fever Love Loved Unlive
I am the androgyne, I am the living mind you fail to describe in your dead language the lost noun, the verb surviving only in the infinitive the letters of my name are written under the lids of the newborn child
ADRIENNE RICH

Androgyne Child Children Dead Describe Infinite Language Living Lost Mind Name Newborn Noun Surviving Verb
It is the lesbian in us who is creative, for the dutiful daughter of the fathers in us is only a hack.
ADRIENNE RICH

Creativity Daughter Father Hack Lesbian
… this world gives no room to be what we dreamt of being
ADRIENNE RICH

Dreamt Giving Room World
Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.
ADRIENNE RICH

Change Invitation Live Threat
When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart.
ADRIENNE RICH

Around Block Building Collapse Landscape Memories Notebook Prayer

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adrienne Rich Quotes