I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAPoetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
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I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
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I like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.
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Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
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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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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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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.
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I’m fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
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Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
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All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
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Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA