Elizabeth Bishop Quotes

Simplicity is the essence of the great, the true, the beautiful in art.

I aspire only to silence.

With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? He studies a single blade of grass.

I would rather sit still in a state of peace on a stone than ride in the motor-car of a multi-millionaire and feel the peacelessness of the multi-millionaire poisoning me.

I just want silence... Jesus, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means right now, I like silence more.

Holding up my purring cat to the moon. I sighed.

Silence is never-ending speech. Vocal speech obstructs the other speech of silence. In silence one is in intimate contact with the surroundings. Language is only a medium for communicating one's thoughts to another. Silence is ever speaking.

I can never get over when you're on the beach how beautiful the sand looks and the water washes it away and straightens it up and the trees and the grass all look great. I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.

All I really need is my bed and my art around me.

Only in intimate communion with solitude may man find himself. Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it.

Writing. Love is writing.

Love needs two things: it has to be rooted in freedom and it has to know the art of trust.

Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.

Let me posses what I now have, or even less, so that I may enjoy my remaining days, if Heaven grant any to remain.

Beauty ...is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.

What is true stillness? Stillness in movement.

She's not wearing makeup so her face just looks like skin.

Masters of one art have mastered all because they have mastered themselves. With dominion over both mind and muscle, they demonstrate power, serenity, and spirit. They not only have talent for their sport, they have an expanded capacity for life. The experts shine in the competitive arena; the masters shine everywhere.

So love is rest? The cosy corner? The little nook? Sometimes it ought to be. Sometimes it is.

The usefulness of the cup is its emptiness.

Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming.

I really believe in empty spaces, although, as an artist, I make a lot of junk. Empty space is never-wasted space. Wasted space is any space that has art in it. An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he, for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

For Nature is love, and finds haunts for true love, Where nothing can hear or intrude; It hides from the eagle and joins with the dove, In beautiful green solitude.