I 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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote beautifully describes the deep emotional connection and intimacy shared between lovers.
In this quote, Elizabeth Bishop illustrates the profound bond between lovers as they share an intimate and profound understanding of each other, akin to two pages of a book that read one another even in darkness. The imagery suggests that their knowledge of each other is complete and lifelong, embodying a relationship where both partners are deeply entwined in a shared existence, comfortable in their unity even subconsciously.
Themes
LoveIntimacyConnectionRelationshipUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding speech, one might quote this to emphasize the bond between the couple.
More from Elizabeth Bishop
All quotes →It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos.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
What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.
Elizabeth BishopRead
Similar quotes
The God of love my shepherd is, And he that doth me feed: While he is mine, and I am his, What can I want or need?
George HerbertRead
I’ve been looking for a long, long time, _x000D_ for this thing called love, _x000D_ I’ve ridden comets across the sky, _x000D_ and I’ve looked below and above. _x000D_ Then one day I looked inside myself, _x000D_ and this is what I found, _x000D_ A golden sun residing there, _x000D_ beaming forth God’s light and sound.
RumiRead
He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit educated Maurice's spirit, for they themselves became equal. Neither thought "Am I led; am I leading?" Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.
E. M. ForsterRead
To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. We believe these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved.
Bell HooksRead
I love myself, therefore I love totally in the now, experiencing each moment as good and knowing that my future is bright, and joyous and secure, for I am a beloved child of the universe and the universe lovingly takes care of me now and forever more. And so it is.
Louise HayRead
Returning hate, adding deeper darkness to a night that is already void of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read