When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAI’d have to be really quick to describe clouds – a split second’s enough for them to start being something else.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
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Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
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No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
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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 like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.
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It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
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I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
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Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
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Something doesn’t start at its usual time. Something doesn’t happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.
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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.
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Memory at last has what I sought.
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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.
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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