Adrienne Rich Quotes

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.

The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.

It is unstable and threatening as the earth is not; it spawns new life daily, yet swallows up lives; it is changeable like the moon, unregulated, yet indestructible and eternal.

Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.

One of the great functions of art is to help us imagine what it is like to be not ourselves, what it is like to be someone or something else.

… this world gives no room to be what we dreamt of being

It’s exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.

A language is a map of our failures.

I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.

Lying is done with words and also with silence.