When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAWhen I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAKeep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKATheir faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAPoets 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 SZYMBORSKAYou can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKASometimes 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 SZYMBORSKANo one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAIn every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKALife lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAAll is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKASomewhere out there the world must have an end.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI don’t know the role I’m playing. I only know it’s mine, non-convertible.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI’m working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKADying – you can’t do that to a cat.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA