My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you...it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those to whom you give your… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share
What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion. What I'm finding is… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“Well, she's long about her coming, who must be more merciless to herself than history. Her mind full to the wind, I see her… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
I think my work comes out of both an intense desire for connection and what it means to feel isolated. There's always going to… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrotea letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!' — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
The women's movement appeared at a very crucial moment in my life. There was a whole political movement asking such questions and others I… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
The decision to feed the world is the real decision. No revolution has chosen it. For that choice requires that women shall be free. — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
