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I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
Wislawa Szymborska -
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
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Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
Wislawa Szymborska -
I don't know the role I'm playing. I only know it's mine, non-convertible.
Wislawa Szymborska -
God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.
Wislawa Szymborska -
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 -
Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
Wislawa Szymborska -
Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
Wislawa Szymborska
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History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle, ... emptiness running down steps toward the garden, nobody's place in line.
Wislawa Szymborska -
I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
Wislawa Szymborska -
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
Wislawa Szymborska -
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.
Wislawa Szymborska -
Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.
Wislawa Szymborska -
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still
Wislawa Szymborska -
No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
Wislawa Szymborska -
Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
Wislawa Szymborska -
After every war someone has to tidy up.
Wislawa Szymborska -
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
Wislawa Szymborska -
They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
Wislawa Szymborska -
I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.
Wislawa Szymborska -
Poets, if they're genuine, must keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that's absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their oeuvre.
Wislawa Szymborska -
I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are pushed into the foreground, when you make these young people the only vehicles of lifes wisdom.
Wislawa Szymborska