Wisława Szymborska quotes - page 4

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. (Wisława 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.

Wisława Szymborska

They were or they weren't. On an island or not. An ocean or not an ocean Swallowed them up or it didn't.

Wisława Szymborska

I am too close for him to dream of me. I don't flutter over him, don't flee him beneath the roots of trees. I am too close. The caught fish doesn't sing with my voice. The ring doesn't roll from my finger. I am too close.

Wisława Szymborska

Born. So he was born, too. Born like everyone else. Like me, who will die. The son of an actual woman. A new arrival from the body's depths. A voyager to Omega.

Wisława Szymborska

I'm sorry that my voice was hard. Look down on yourselves from the stars, I cried, look down on yourselves from the stars. They heard me and lowered their eyes.

Wisława Szymborska

And only we few who remain unstripped of fur, untorn from bone, unplucked of soaring feathers, esteemed in all our quills, scales, tusks, and horns, and in whatever else that ingenious protein has seen fit to clothe us with, we, my lord, are your dream, which finds you innocent for now.

Wisława Szymborska

So he's got to have happiness, he's got to have truth, too, he's got to have eternity - did you ever!

Wisława Szymborska

I believe in the refusal to take part. I believe in the ruined career. I believe in the wasted years of work. I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

Wisława Szymborska

On this third planet from the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is Number One.

Wisława Szymborska

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan.
I'm drowning in debts up to my ears.
I'll have to pay for myself
with my self,
give up my life for my life. (Wisława Szymborska)

For the sake of research, the big picture and definitive conclusions, one would have to transcend time, in which everything scurries and whirls.

Wisława Szymborska

I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.

Wisława Szymborska

I'm drowning in papers.

Wisława Szymborska

After every war someone has to tidy up.

Wisława 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.

Wisława Szymborska

Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.

Wisława Szymborska

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

Wisława Szymborska

Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Wisława Szymborska

Something doesn't start at its usual time. Something doesn't happen as it should.

Wisława Szymborska

The window has a wonderful view of a lake,
but the view doesn't view itself. (Wisława Szymborska)

Our humans don't know how to talk to one another.

Wisława Szymborska

There's no life that couldn't be immortal if only for a moment.

Wisława Szymborska

Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves.

Wisława Szymborska

He has only just learned to tell dreams from waking.

Wisława Szymborska

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Wisława Szymborska

Occupation: Polish Poet
Born: July 2, 1923
Died: February 1, 2012
Quotes count: 153
Wikipedia: Wisława Szymborska

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