Wisława Szymborska quotes - page 5

Even sight heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part. (Wisława Szymborska)

I felt age within me. Distance. The futility of wandering. Torpor.

Wisława Szymborska

And how can we talk of order overall when the very placement of the stars leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?

Wisława Szymborska

Few of them made it to thirty. Old age was the privilege of rocks and trees.

Wisława Szymborska

Within him, there's awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy.

Wisława Szymborska

Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Wisława Szymborska

Our snakes have shed their lightning, our apes their flights of fancy.

Wisława Szymborska

I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition.

Wisława Szymborska

Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me how little now remains.

Wisława Szymborska

Those who knew what this was all about must make way for those who know little.

Wisława Szymborska

I remember it so clearly -
how people, seeing me, would break off in midword.
Laughter died. (Wisława Szymborska)

I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers.

Wisława Szymborska

We call it a grain of sand but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.

Wisława Szymborska

I no longer require your stone gods, your ruins with legible inscriptions.

Wisława Szymborska

It looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them.

Wisława Szymborska

In Heraclitus' river a fish has imagined the fish of all fish.

Wisława Szymborska

The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

Wisława Szymborska

Every beginning, after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle.

Wisława Szymborska

It turns out I was right. But nothing has come of it.

Wisława Szymborska

True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Wisława Szymborska

Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality. (Wisława Szymborska)

I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.

Wisława Szymborska

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.

Wisława Szymborska

Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light.

Wisława Szymborska

In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world.

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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