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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

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Elizabeth Bishop
Age: 68 †
Born: 1911
Born: February 8
Died: 1979
Died: October 6
Essayist
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Worcester
Massachusetts
Elisabeth Bishop
Since
Breasts
World
Forever
Drawn
Flown
Dark
Mouth
Rocky
Clear
Mouths
Symbolism
Knowledge
Historical
Derived
Free
Sea
Flowing
Cold
Utterly
Moving
Imagine
Salt
Hard

More quotes by Elizabeth Bishop

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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.
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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'.
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What the Man-Moth fears most he must do.
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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.
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Ports are necessities, like postage stamps or soap, but they seldom seem to care what impressions they make.
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It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.
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And as to experience-well, think how little some good poets have had, or how much some bad ones have.
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Icebergs behoove the soul (both being self-made from elements least visible) to see themselves: fleshed, fair, erected, indivisible.
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Insomnia perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.
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Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed home and thought of here? Where should we be today?
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I was made at right angles to the world and I see it so. I can only see it so.
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Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
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Something needn't be large to be good.
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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.
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Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!
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I am sorry for people who can't write letters. But I suspect also that you and I ... love to write them because it's kind of like working without really doing it.
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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.
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The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
Elizabeth Bishop
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But he sleeps on the top of his mast with his eyes closed tight. The gull inquired into his dream, which was, I must not fall. The spangled sea below wants me to fall. It is hard as diamonds it wants to destroy us all.
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What childishness is it that while there's breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around?
Elizabeth Bishop