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It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos.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
We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.
Charlie KaufmanRead
It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.
Alan RickmanRead
Overall, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give to the listener the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe... That's what I would like to do. I think that's one of the greatest things you can do in life, and we all try to do that in some way. The musician's is through his music.
John ColtraneRead
What a glorious garden of wonders the lights of Broadway would be to anyone lucky enough to be unable to read.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
Writers have to keep on writing if they want to mature, like caterpillars endlessly chewing on leaves.
Haruki MurakamiRead
You would get some fantastic syntactical phenomena. You would hear people talking in Barbados in the exact melody as a minor character in Shakespeare. Because here you have a thing that was not immured and preserved and mummified, but a voluble language, very active, very swift, very sharp.
Derek WalcottRead