Wislawa Szymborska Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Workout, Sorry, Practice

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Map: Collected and Last Poems”, p.24, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Book, Thinking, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• When I mention somebody, that doesn't necessarily mean that I identify with him, personally or poetically. I'm extremely happy when I encounter poets who are different than I am. The ones who have their own distinct poetics provide me with the greatest experiences.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Mean, Encounters, Different

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Long, World, Kind

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Map: Collected and Last Poems”, p.316, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Light, Doubt, Secret

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Poems New and Collected”, p.183, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Complicated, Persons

  9 Copy quote

• I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Speak, Hours

  6 Copy quote

• God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Strong, Believe, Men

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Poems New and Collected”, p.199, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Shadow, Four, Tables

  5 Copy quote

• After every war someone has to tidy up.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  War, Tidy

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Poems New and Collected”, p.228, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. 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. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Jobs, Passion, Earth

  "The Poet and the World". Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 07, 1996.

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Littles, Common, Grind

  Wislawa Szymborska, Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh (2000). “Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Somewhere out there the world must have an end.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  World, End Of The World, Ends

  Wisława Szymborska (1981). “Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems”, p.119, Princeton University Press

  19 Copy quote

• Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune's darlings.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Inspiration, Ethos, Groups

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Poems New and Collected”, p.16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

• When it comes, you’ll be dreaming that you don’t need to breathe; that breathless silence is the music of the dark and it’s part of the rhythm to vanish like a spark.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Dream, Dark, Silence

  Wislawa Szymborska, Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh (2000). “Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Inspiration, Writing, Thinking

  "Alone with the Greta Garbo of verse". Interview with James Hopkin, www.theguardian.com. July 15, 2000.

  4 Copy quote

• Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don't like to joke.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Serious, Existentialist, Jokes

  Wisława Szymborska (1981). “Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems”, p.9, Princeton University Press

  6 Copy quote

• Memory at last has what I sought.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Memories, Lasts

  6 Copy quote

• They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  First Love, Important, Firsts

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Map: Collected and Last Poems”, p.335, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Today when two people decide upon a thoughtless and precipitate abbreviation of the physical space between them, they think, at least at that moment, that they're mutually attracted and drawn together by an overwhelming force.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Sex, Thinking, Space

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces”, p.155, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it's not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance to remember for a moment a conversation held with the lamp switched off; and if only once to stumble upon a stone, end up soaked in one downpour or another, mislay your keys in the grass; and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes; and to keep on not knowing something important.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Dog, Pain, Mistake

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Monologue of a Dog”, p.94, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Clouds, Splits, Enough

  Wislawa Szymborska (2015). “Poems New and Collected”, p.266, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• I'm drowning in papers.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Paper, Drowning, Papers

  4 Copy quote

• Well, one is inspired by the whole of life, one's own and somebody else's. You know how sometimes you hear great music, and music is completely untranslatable into words, into any words. A certain tension that is born when one listens to music could aid you in expressing something absolutely different.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Different, Inspired, Sometimes

  5 Copy quote

• I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Dog, Fun, World

  Wislawa Szymborska, Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh (2000). “Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997”, p.3, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

Page 3 of 4

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin