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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
Dark
Mouth
Rocky
Clear
Mouths
Symbolism
Knowledge
Historical
Derived
Free
Sea
Flowing
Moving
Cold
Utterly
Hard
Imagine
Salt
World
Since
Breasts
Forever
Drawn
Flown

More quotes by Elizabeth Bishop

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Heaven is not like flying or swimming, but has something to do with blackness and a strong glare.
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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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I was made at right angles to the world and I see it so. I can only see it so.
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Something needn't be large to be good.
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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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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.
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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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Ports are necessities, like postage stamps or soap, but they seldom seem to care what impressions they make.
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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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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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Insomnia perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.
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What the Man-Moth fears most he must do.
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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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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?
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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.
Elizabeth Bishop
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And as to experience-well, think how little some good poets have had, or how much some bad ones have.
Elizabeth Bishop
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It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.
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.
Elizabeth Bishop