All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKALife lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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After every war someone has to tidy up.
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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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Sometimes 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!
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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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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.
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Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
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No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning —three cheers for the ants.
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And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
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I don’t know the role I’m playing. I only know it’s mine, non-convertible.
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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
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I’m fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
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Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA