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 SZYMBORSKAIs a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
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Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
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In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
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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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I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds – a split second’s enough for them to start being something else.
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Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.
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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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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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Memory at last has what I sought.
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What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?
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Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA