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 SZYMBORSKAI 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 SZYMBORSKASuch certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAIt’s a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor’s orders, you have to be healthy as a horse.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAAll the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAAll is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAEven a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKASometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAPoetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKASecret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAWhat does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI’m drowning in papers.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAThis terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAAfter every war someone has to tidy up.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAThe joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA