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It is like 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 Poems: North & South—A Cold Spring (1955)

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More quotes by Elizabeth Bishop

The armored cars of dreams contrived to let us do
so many a dangerous thing.

North & South (1946)

From a magician's midnight sleeve
the radio-singers
distribute all their love-songs
over the dew-wet lawns.

North & South (1946)

Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?

Questions of Travel (1965)

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

Questions of Travel (1965)

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down.

Questions of Travel (1965)

All Elizabeth Bishop quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Elizabeth Bishop (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.