We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKANo one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning —three cheers for the ants.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
-
-
Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Whether you want it or not, your genes have a political past, your skin a political tone. your eyes a political color. You walk with political steps on political ground.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I am a tarsier and a tarsier’s son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers, a tiny creature, made up of two pupils and whatever simply could not be left out.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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 -
I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.
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 -
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Memory at last has what I sought.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA