Elizabeth Bishop Quotes

Quotes about:

Art Dreams Losing Sleep Writing

If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I'm sure it's a good one—and the same goes for paintings.

Elizabeth Bishop

Looks, World, Painting

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “One Art: Letters”, p.612, Macmillan

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Close, close all night the lovers keep. They turn together in their sleep, Close as two pages in a book that read each other in the dark. Each knows all the other knows, learned by heart from head to toes.

Elizabeth Bishop

Book, Heart, Sleep

Elizabeth Bishop (2008). “Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters”

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Something needn't be large to be good.

Elizabeth Bishop

Be Good

Elizabeth Bishop, George Monteiro (1996). “Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop”, p.24, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.

Elizabeth Bishop

Passing By, Forget, Passings

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The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop

Art, Sunset, Loss

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.198, Macmillan

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What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.

Elizabeth Bishop

Art, Self, Useless

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All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something'.

Elizabeth Bishop

Country, Running, Travel

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Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!

Elizabeth Bishop

Jobs, Writing, Temptation

Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell (2008). “Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell”

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Why shouldn't we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music [...], some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?

Elizabeth Bishop

Art, Delicate Things, Roaring

Elizabeth Bishop (2008). “Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters”

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I am overcome by my own amazing sloth...Can you please forgive me and believe that it is really because I want to do something well that I don't do it at all?

Elizabeth Bishop

Believe, Forgive Me, Sloth

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I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow! There is a magic made by melody: A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep To the subaqueous stillness of the sea, And floats forever in a moon-green pool, Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Elizabeth Bishop

Dream, Song, Fall

Elizabeth Bishop (2008). “Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters”

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I was made at right angles to the world and I see it so. I can only see it so.

Elizabeth Bishop

World, Made, Angle

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.300, Macmillan

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Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.

Elizabeth Bishop

Women, People, Democracy

Elizabeth Bishop (1962). “LIFE WORLD LIBRARY BRAZIL”

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Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Elizabeth Bishop

Art, Keys, Doors

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.198, Macmillan

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Sometimes it seemsas though only intelligent people are stupid enough to fall in love & only stupid people are intelligent enough to let themselves be loved.

Elizabeth Bishop

Falling In Love, Stupid, Intelligent

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Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?

Elizabeth Bishop

Dream, Our Dreams

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.91, Macmillan

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All the untidyactivity continues, awful but cheerful.

Elizabeth Bishop

Cheerful, Awful

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “One Art: Letters”, p.287, Macmillan

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Someone loves us all.

Elizabeth Bishop

God, One Love

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It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.

Elizabeth Bishop

Moving, Dark, Salt

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.64, Macmillan

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Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed home and thought of here? Where should we be today?

Elizabeth Bishop

Home, Thinking, Long

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.91, Macmillan

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There are some people whom we envy not because they are rich or handsome or successful, although they may be all or any of these, but because everything they are or do seems to be all of a piece, so that even if they wanted to they could not be or do otherwise.

Elizabeth Bishop

Success, People, Envy

Elizabeth Bishop (2008). “Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters”

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The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.

Elizabeth Bishop

Dream, Car, Dangerous

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.31, Macmillan

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Heaven is not like flying or swimming, but has something to do with blackness and a strong glare.

Elizabeth Bishop

Strong, Swimming, Heaven

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.41, Macmillan

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It is what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

Elizabeth Bishop

Moving, Knowledge, Dark

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.64, Macmillan

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Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of food and love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I'd dream of things like slitting a baby's throat, mistaking it for a baby goat. I'd have nightmares of other islands stretching away from mine, infinities of islands, islands spawning islands, like frogs' eggs turning into polliwogs of islands, knowing that I had to live on each and every one, eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.

Elizabeth Bishop

Dream, Baby, Islands

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Geography III: Poems”, p.15, Macmillan

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Born: February 8, 1911
Died: October 6, 1979
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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