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 BishopRead
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Losing is a skill that can be learned and understood rather than something to fear.
In this quote, Elizabeth Bishop conveys that the experience of losing, whether it be in relationships, competitions, or other aspects of life, is not inherently negative but rather an art form that can be mastered over time. It suggests that once we accept loss as a natural part of life, we can approach it with grace and understanding, allowing us to cope better with our emotions and circumstances.
Themes
LosingMasteryAcceptanceArtLoss
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a motivational speech about resilience.
More from Elizabeth Bishop
All quotes βI 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 BishopRead
It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos.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 BishopRead
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 BishopRead
Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)
Elizabeth BishopRead
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.
Elizabeth BishopRead
Similar quotes
In the experience of art, time seems not to exist.
Salman RushdieRead
I like to look at pictures, all kinds. And all those things you absorb come out subconsciously one way or another. You'll be taking photographs and suddenly know that you have resources from having looked at a lot of them before. There is no way you can avoid this. But this kind of subconscious influence is good, and it certainly can work for one. In fact, the more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
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I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them.
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Superheroes are best imagined in comic books. The union between the written word, the image, and then what your imagination has to do to connect those allows for so much.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. I avoided this punishment by destroying them, I thought, and suddenly I took great pleasure in the word destroying.
Thomas BernhardRead
There are some designers who flash and burn - Courreges is an example of that. But he still marked fashion history. And I don't think that longevity is always a badge of honor. Modern brand management means that we are always celebrating birthdays, when what is exciting about fashion is innovation, not repetition.
Suzy MenkesRead