I don’t know the role I’m playing. I only know it’s mine, non-convertible.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
After every war someone has to tidy up.
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 -
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 -
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
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!
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 -
Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Dying – you can’t do that to a cat.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA