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An honorable human relationship – that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" – is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

An honorable human relationship – that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" – is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

Approximate author period: c. 1970 AD · modern

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Adrienne Rich
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1970 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1929 to 2012; Wikidata Q270705, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q270705 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 51701; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.