Wislawa Szymborska Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Wislawa Szymborska.
Famous Quotes By Wislawa Szymborska
The track's all yours. We won't get in your way: by then we will have set off chasing ourselves rather than you. — Wislawa Szymborska
It's just not easy to explain to someone else what you don't understand yourself. — Wislawa Szymborska
Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind. — Wislawa Szymborska
I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings. The — Wislawa Szymborska
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again. — Wislawa Szymborska
All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. — Wislawa Szymborska
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it. — Wislawa Szymborska
How should we live? someone asked me in a letter.
I had meant to ask him
the same question.
0 likes — Wislawa Szymborska
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light. — Wislawa Szymborska
Every beginning, after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle. — Wislawa Szymborska
Dividing earth and sky
is not the right way
to think about this wholeness.
It only allows one to live
at a more precise address--
were I to be searched for
I'd be found much faster.
My distinguishing marks
are rapture and despair.
From 'Sky', in the collection 'Miracle Fair — Wislawa Szymborska
When I mention somebody, that doesn't necessarily mean that I identify with him, personally or poetically. I'm extremely happy when I encounter poets who are different than I am. The ones who have their own distinct poetics provide me with the greatest experiences. — Wislawa Szymborska
Unfortunately, poetry is not born in noise, in crowds, or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about. — Wislawa Szymborska
Poets, if they're genuine, must keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that's absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their oeuvre. — Wislawa Szymborska
Four billion people on this earth
but my imagination is still the same.
It's bad with large numbers.
It's still taken by particularity.
It flits in the dark like a flashlight,
illuminating only random faces
while all the rest go by,
never coming to mind and never really missed. — Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice. — Wislawa Szymborska
within the four walls of avalanches, I call out to Yeti.
Stomping my feet for warmth
on the snow
the snow eternal. — Wislawa Szymborska
I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones. — Wislawa Szymborska
Funny little thing. How could she know that even despair can work for you if you're lucky enough to outlive it. I'd — Wislawa Szymborska
Somewhere out there the world must have an end. — Wislawa Szymborska
Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person. — Wislawa Szymborska
They'll reenter their lives' cages, where love's tiger sometimes rages, but the beast's too tame to bite. We'll — Wislawa Szymborska
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile. — Wislawa Szymborska
Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring
this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes. — Wislawa Szymborska
But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet. — Wislawa Szymborska
I slip my arm from underneath his sleeping head -
it's numb, swarming with imaginary pins.
A host of fallen angels perches on each tip,
waiting to be counted. — Wislawa Szymborska
When it comes, you'll be dreaming that you don't need to breathe; that breathless silence is the music of the dark and it's part of the rhythm to vanish like a spark. — Wislawa Szymborska
I slide my arm from under the sleeper's head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit. — Wislawa Szymborska
I'm drowning in papers. — Wislawa Szymborska
Even the worst book can give us something to think about. — Wislawa Szymborska
Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life. — Wislawa Szymborska
There's simply too much fuss about myself. — Wislawa Szymborska
Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two. — Wislawa Szymborska
No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses. — Wislawa Szymborska
What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own? — Wislawa Szymborska
Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand. — Wislawa Szymborska
I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs. — Wislawa Szymborska
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
...
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in line. — Wislawa Szymborska
The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun. — Wislawa Szymborska
I'll never find out now
What A. thought of me.
If B. ever forgave me in the end.
Why C. pretended everything was fine.
What part D. played in E.'s silence.
What F. had been expecting, if anything.
Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What H. had to hide.
What I. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet. — Wislawa Szymborska
I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers, a tiny creature, made up of two pupils and whatever simply could not be left out ... — Wislawa Szymborska
Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don't charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost. — Wislawa Szymborska
Dying - you can't do that to a cat. — Wislawa Szymborska
Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.
From, The Joy of Writing, Wislawa Szymborska — Wislawa Szymborska
I've had the good fortune to read a lot of great American writers in translation, and my absolute beloved, for me one of the greatest writers ever, is Mark Twain. Yes, yes, yes. And Whitman, from whom the whole of 20th-century poetry sprung up. Whitman was the origin of things, someone with a completely different outlook. But I think that he's the father of the new wave in the world's poetry which to this very day is hitting the shore. — Wislawa Szymborska
Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light. — Wislawa Szymborska
Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink! — Wislawa Szymborska
When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. — Wislawa Szymborska
Every menu is an obituary. — Wislawa Szymborska
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination ... Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know. — Wislawa Szymborska
in painted quiet and concentration — Wislawa Szymborska
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look. — Wislawa Szymborska
Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything. — Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan — Wislawa Szymborska
At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind. — Wislawa Szymborska
I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other. — Wislawa Szymborska
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through. — Wislawa Szymborska
God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men. — Wislawa Szymborska
Animals don't even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down ... The conscious impulse to change one's appearance is found only among humans. — Wislawa Szymborska
When I was young I had a moment of believing in the Communist doctrine. I wanted to save the world through Communism. Quite soon I understood that it doesn't work, but I've never pretended it didn't happen to me. — Wislawa Szymborska
Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light. — Wislawa Szymborska
'There's nothing new under the sun': that's what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. — Wislawa Szymborska
How light the raindrop's contents are;
how gently the world touches me.
From View With a Grain of Sand — Wislawa Szymborska
You know, I'm worried about Szymborska. I wish she would stop smoking. — Wislawa Szymborska
I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. — Wislawa Szymborska
Woods disguised as woods alive without end, and above them birds in flight play birds in flight. — Wislawa Szymborska
It's a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor's orders, you have to be healthy as a horse. — Wislawa Szymborska
Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality. — Wislawa Szymborska
My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as
my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories
fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. — Wislawa Szymborska
Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."...That is why I value that little phrase "I don't know" so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include spaces within us as well as the outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended...Poets, if they're genuine, must always keep repeating "I don't know. — Wislawa Szymborska
My choices are rejections, since there is no other way,
but what I reject is more numerous,
denser, more demanding than before.
A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss. — Wislawa Szymborska
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses. — Wislawa Szymborska
My apologies to past loves for treating the latest as the first. — Wislawa Szymborska
We, too, can divide ourselves, it's true. / But only into flesh and a broken whisper. / Into flesh and poetry. — Wislawa Szymborska
Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison. I am near, too near for him to dream of me. — Wislawa Szymborska
Memories come to mind like excavated statues
that have misplaced their heads. — Wislawa Szymborska
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems. — Wislawa Szymborska
The world, whatever we might think about it terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the face of it, embittered by its indifference to individual suffering - of people, animals, and perhaps also plants, for how can we be sure that plants are free of suffering; whatever we might think about its spaces pierced by the radiation of stars, stars around which we now have begun to discover planets, already dead? still dead? - we don't know; whatever we might think about this immense theater, to which we may have a ticket, but it is valid for a ridiculously brief time, limited by two decisive dates; whatever else we might think about this world - it is amazing. — Wislawa Szymborska
Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens? — Wislawa Szymborska
I am telling him
what he wants to hear: ants
dying of love under
the constellation of the dandelion.
I swear that a white rose,
sprinkled with wine, sings.
I am laughing, tilting
my head carefully
as if checking an invention.
I am dancing, dancing
in astonished skin, in
an embrace that creates me. — Wislawa Szymborska
Even a passing moment has its fertile past. — Wislawa Szymborska
The Three Oddest Words
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold. — Wislawa Szymborska
Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don't like to joke. — Wislawa Szymborska
We know ourselves only as far as we've been tested. — Wislawa Szymborska
They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience. — Wislawa Szymborska
I've wanted to write about them for a long while,
but it's a tricky subject,
always put off for later
and perhaps worthy of a better poet,
even more stunned by the world than I.
But time is short. I write. — Wislawa Szymborska
No one feels good at four in the morning.
If ants feel good at four in the morning
- three cheers for the ants. — Wislawa Szymborska
I am my own obstacle. — Wislawa Szymborska
I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else. — Wislawa Szymborska
Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry. — Wislawa Szymborska
When they said he didn't exist, he couldn't die of grief, so he had to be born. He's already out there living somewhere; he blinks his little eyes and grows. — Wislawa Szymborska
In these lands you're a name to avoid, you're bound for defeat, you're a sign pointing out those who must be destroyed. At — Wislawa Szymborska
Something doesn't start at its usual time. Something doesn't happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared. — Wislawa Szymborska
Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation. — Wislawa Szymborska
Memory at last has what I sought. — Wislawa Szymborska
After every war someone has to tidy up. — Wislawa Szymborska