Elizabeth Bishop Quotes - Page 2

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Art Dreams Losing Sleep Writing

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.

Elizabeth Bishop

Dream, Fall, Sleep

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.24, 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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It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos. The rackety, icy, offshore wind numbed our faces on one side; disrupted the formation of a lone flight of Canada geese; and blew back the low, inaudible rollers in upright, steely mist.

Elizabeth Bishop

Beach, Spring, Ocean

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

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I've never written the things I'd like to write that I've admired all my life. Maybe one never does.

Elizabeth Bishop

Writing, Doe, Written

Elizabeth Bishop, George Monteiro (1996). “Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop”, p.119, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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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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What the Man-Moth fears most he must do.

Elizabeth Bishop

Men, Moths

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.16, Macmillan

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The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.

Elizabeth Bishop

Men, Shadow, Hats

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.16, Macmillan

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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.

Elizabeth Bishop

Sorry, Writing, People

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I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels-until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Elizabeth Bishop

Fighting, Orange, Filled Up

"The Fish" l. 74 (1946)

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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

Body, Way, Sun

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

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Icebergs behoove the soul (both being self-made from elements least visible) to see themselves: fleshed, fair, erected, indivisible.

Elizabeth Bishop

Self, Soul, Elements

Elizabeth Bishop, “The Imaginary Iceberg”

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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

Writing, Thinking, Littles

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Insomnia" perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

Elizabeth Bishop

Insomnia, Sleepers, Daytime

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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

Breakup, Art, Writing

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

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The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Elizabeth Bishop

Art, Your Loss, Losing

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

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Ports are necessities, like postage stamps or soap, but they seldom seem to care what impressions they make.

Elizabeth Bishop

Sailing, Care, Soap

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.88, Macmillan

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Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.

Elizabeth Bishop

Color, Topography, Maps

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.5, Macmillan

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The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.

Elizabeth Bishop

Pigs, Feet, Littles

Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.69, Macmillan

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I HATED the Salinger story. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it?

Elizabeth Bishop

Stories, Pages, Way

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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

Dream, Real, Men

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

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