For now, poetry has the capacity - in its own ways and by its own means - to remind us of something we are forbidden to see. - Adrienne Rich
and I ask myself and you, which of our visions will claim uswhich will we claimhow will we go on livinghow will we touch, what will we knowwhat will we say to each other. - Adrienne Rich
Love, our subject:we've trained it like ivy to our walls. - Adrienne Rich
The problem, unstated until now, is how to live in a damaged body in a world where pain is meant to be gagged uncured ungrieved over. The problem is to connect, without hysteria, the pain of anyone's body with the pain of the world's body. - Adrienne Rich
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work. - Adrienne Rich
You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it. - Adrienne Rich
There is no 'the truth,' 'a truth'--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. - Adrienne Rich
And yet, protest it if we will,Some corner of the mind retainsThe medieval man, who stillKeeps watch upon those starry skeinsAnd drives us out of doors at nightTo gaze at anagrams of light. - Adrienne Rich
To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist. - Adrienne Rich
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. - Adrienne Rich
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever. - Adrienne Rich
There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors. - Adrienne Rich
I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn't know that, and I have no carbons - Adrienne Rich
To do something very common, in my own way. - Adrienne Rich