After every war someone has to tidy up.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAThe joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
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 -
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
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 -
No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 SZYMBORSKA -
Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Memory at last has what I sought.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
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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.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA