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 SZYMBORSKAWhen 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.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
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They say the first love’s most important. That’s very romantic, but not my experience.
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No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
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Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
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I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
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All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
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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.
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I’m drowning in papers.
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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.
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All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA






