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Top Elizabeth Bishop Quotes

Browse top 38 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Elizabeth Bishop.

Favorite Elizabeth Bishop Quotes

1. "I am in need of music that would flowOver 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 coolHeart, that sinks through fading colors deepTo 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
2. "I was made at right angles to the worldand I see it so. I can only see it so." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
3. "Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
4. "Close, close all nightthe lovers keep.They turn togetherin their sleep,Close as two pagesin a bookthat read each otherin the dark.Each knows allthe other knows,learned by heartfrom head to toes." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
5. "But he sleeps on the top of his mastwith 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." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
6. "Time to plant tears, says the almanac.The grandmother sings to the marvelous stoveand the child draws another inscrutable house." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
7. "Insomnia"perhaps she's a daytime sleeper." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
8. "Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
9. "Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of foodand love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I'd dream of thingslike slitting a baby's throat, mistaking itfor a baby goat. I'd havenightmares of other islandsstretching away from mine, infinitiesof islands, islands spawning islands,like frogs' eggs turning into polliwogsof islands, knowing that I had to liveon each and every one, eventually,for ages, registering their flora,their fauna, their geography." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
10. "I knew that nothing strangerhad ever happened, that nothingstranger could ever happen." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
11. "Each night he must be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window, for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison, runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
12. "--Even losing you (a 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
13. "The moon in the bureau mirrorlooks out a million miles(and perhaps with pride, at herself,but she never, never smiles)far and away beyond sleep, orperhaps she's a daytime sleeper.By the Universe deserted,she'd tell it to go to hell,and she'd find a body of water,or a mirror, on which to dwell.So wrap up care in a cobweband drop it down the wellinto that world invertedwhere left is always right,where the shadows are really the body,where we stay awake all night,where the heavens are shallow as the seais now deep, and you love me." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
14. "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
15. "Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
16. "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
17. "The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
18. "The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
19. "The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
20. "I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,icily free above the stones,above the stones and then the world.If you should dip your hand in,your wrist would ache immediately,your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burnas if the water were a transmutation of firethat feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,then briny, then surely burn your tongue.It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,drawn form the cold hard mouthof the world, derived from the rocky breastsforever, flowing and drawn, and sinceour knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
21. "[Marianne Moore] once remarked, after a visit to her brother and his family, that the state of being married and having children had one enormous advantage: "One never has to worry about whether one is doing the right thing or not. There isn't time. One is always having to go to the market or drive the children somewhere. There isn't time to wonder 'Is this right or isn't it?" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
22. "But they made me realize more than I ever had the rarity of true originality, and also the sort of alienation it might involve." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
23. "Should we have stayed home and thought of here?" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
24. "I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon: I know this." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
25. "Screen porch in a tree." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
26. "One shouldn't get too involved with people who can't possibly understand one" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
27. "Well, the cat is flourishing and gets more spoiled and more beautiful every day. His whiskers measure, from tip to tip, including his mouth and nose, of course, ten inches, pure white whale bone." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
28. "Sleeping on the Ceiling"It is so peaceful on the ceiling!It is the Place de la Concorde.The little crystal chandelieris off, the fountain is in the dark.Not a soul is in the park.Below, where the wallpaper is peeling,the Jardin des Plantes has locked its gates.Those photographs are animals.The mighty flowers and foliage rustle;under the leaves the insects tunnel.We must go under the wallpaperto meet the insect-gladiator,to battle with a net and trident,and leave the fountain and the square.But oh, that we could sleep up there...." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
29. "Bishop on "A Miracle for Breakfast" and Sestina TechniqueIt seems to me that there are two ways possible for a sestina. One is to use unusual wordsas terminations, in which case they would have to be used differently as often aspossible—as you say, "change of scale." That would make a very highly seasoned kind ofpoem. And the other way is to use as colorless words as possible—like Sidney, so that itbecomes less of a trick and more of a natural theme and variations. I guess I have tried todo both at once." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
30. "Bishop on "At the Fishhouses"At the last minute, after I'd had a chance to do a little research in Cape Breton, I foundI'd said codfish scales once when it should have been herring scales. I hope theycorrected it all right.2Quite a few lines of "At the Fishhouses" came to me in a dream, and the scene— whichwas real enough, I'd recently been there—but the old man and the conversation, etc.,were all in a later dream" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
31. "Somebody embroidered the doily.Somebody waters the plant,or oils it, maybe. Somebodyarranges the rows of cansso that they softly say:esso—so—so—soto high-strung automobiles.Somebody loves us all." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
32. "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
33. "All the untidy activity continues,awful but cheerful." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
34. "Icebergs behoove the soul (both being self-made from elements least visible) to see themselves: fleshed, fair, erected, indivisible." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
35. "Love's the sonstood stammering elocutionwhile the poor ship in flames went down" ~ Elizabeth Bishop
36. "Lullaby For the CatMinnow, go to sleep and dream,Close your great big eyes;Round your bed Events prepareThe pleasantest surprise.Darling Minnow, drop that frown,Just cooperate,Not a kitten shall be drownedIn the Marxist State.Joy and Love will both be yours,Minnow, don't be glum.Happy days are coming soon --Sleep, and let them come..." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
37. "...what the Man-Moth fears most he must do.." ~ Elizabeth Bishop
38. "Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? Where should we be today? Is it right to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theatres? What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around? The tiniest green hummingbird in the world? To stare at some inexplicable old stonework, inexplicable and impenetrable, at any view, instantly seen and always, always delightful? Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too? And have we room for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?" ~ Elizabeth Bishop

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Elizabeth Bishop Quotes
Elizabeth Bishop Quotes
Elizabeth Bishop Quotes

Today's Quote

I remember an hypothesis argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, 'Whether supposing that the flavour of a big who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremem) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting an animal to death?' I forget the decision."
Author: Charles Lamb

What Did Elizabeth Bishop Talk About?

Here
Ear
Wit
Sea
Sin
Sleep
Thin
Low
Lit
Hey
Ring
Ours
Los
She
Sing
Son
Ten
Per
Con
Old
Night
Mad
Lie
Water
Ways
Both
Win
Stay
Sure
Ally
Use
Though
Ages
Cat
Child
Hen
Hand
Lose
Each
Once
Dark
Close
Plan
Plant
Rang
Rent
Pen
Thou

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