Quotes by Adrienne Rich

“Was it worth while to lay— with infinite exertion—a roof I can't live under? —All those blueprints, closings of gaps,measurings, calculations? A life I didn't choose chose me: even my tools are the...”

“No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone.The accidents happen, we’re not heroines,they happen in our lives like car crashes,books that change us, neighborhoodswe move into and come to love.Tristan a...”

“Tongue on your words to taste you thereCouldn’t read what youhad never written therePlayed your message overfeeling badPlayed your message over it was all I hadTo tell me what and whereforethis is ...”

“No person, trying to take responsibility for her or his identity, should have to be so alone. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors.”

“The I you know isn’t me, you said, truthtelling liarMy roots are not my chainsAnd I to you: Whose hands have grownthrough mine? Owl-voiced I cried then: Who?But yours was the one, the only eye assu...”

“The StrangerLooking as I’ve looked before, straight down the heartof the street to the riverwalking the rivers of the avenuesfeeling the shudder of the caves beneath the asphaltwatching the lights ...”

“The friend I can trust is the one who will let me have my death.The rest are actors who want me to stay and further the plot.”

“The dead” we say as if speakingof “the people” whogave up on making historysimply to get throughSomething dense and null groanwithout echo undergroundand owl-voiced I cry Whoare these dead people t...”

“Birds and periodic blood.Old recapitulations.The fox, panting, fire-eyed,gone to earth in my chest.How beautiful we are,he and I, with our auburnpelts, our trails of blood,our miracle escapes,our w...”

“Women's art though created in solitude wells up out of community. There is clearly both enormous hunger for the work thus being diffused and an explosion of creative energy bursting through the coe...”