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 SZYMBORSKAMy choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I’m drowning in papers.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
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 -
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!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I don’t know the role I’m playing. I only know it’s mine, non-convertible.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
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.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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 -
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven’t got even that much, however loveless and boring – this is one of the harshest human miseries.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA