446 Quotes by Adrienne Rich

You breathe upon us nowthrough solid assertionsof yourself: teaspoons, goblets,seas of carpet, a forestof old plants to be wateredan old man in an adjoiningroom to be touched and fed.And all this universedares us to lay a fingeranywhere, save exactlyas you would wish it done.

Time is maleand in his cups drinks to the fair.Bemused be gallantry we hearour mediocrities over-prized,indolence read as abnegation,slattern thought styled intuitionevery lapse forgiven, our crimeonly to cast too bold a shadowor smash the mold straight off.

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 theselovers who if ever didlisten no longer answer: We :

If you think you can grasp me, think again: my story flows in more than one direction a delta springing from the riverbed with its five fingers spread

Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions - whether of sex, race, or servitude.

If I'm lonelyit's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shorein the last red light of the year that knows what it is, that knows it's neitherice nor mud nor winter lightbut wood, with a gift for burning

I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn't know that, and I have no carbons

I don't trust them but I'm learning to use them.

We lie under the sheetafter making love, speakingof lonelinessrelieved in a bookrelived in a bookso on that pagethe clot and fissureof it appearswords of a manin paina naked wordentering the clota hand graspingthrough bars:deliveranceWhat happens between ushas happened for centurieswe know it from literaturestill it happenssexual jealousyoutflung handbeating beddryness of mouth after pantingthere are books that describe all thisand they are useless