“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.”

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.

Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.

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!

No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.

After every war someone has to tidy up.

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.

Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.

I am writing these poems From inside a lion.

The method of learning by trial and error – of learning from our mistakes – seems to be fundamentally the same whether it is practiced by lower or by higher animals, by chimpanzees, or by men of science.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence that could support this.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.

Those little paws gifted me the galaxy of a sweet home.